Oil price drop impact markets

It had been hoped for that BoE Governor, Mark Carney, would have a few words to say on the UK’s interest rate situation in an address to Brussels yesterday, but, alas, his speech was mostly occupied by talk of the UK’s housing market and his concerns for it. One of the biggest influences on GBP yesterday came by way of a drop in oil prices to a 7 year low – GBP versus CAD then hit a high of 2.03 (interbank).

Today we’ll see the release of manufacturing and industrial production numbers (monthly), followed by a NIESR GDP estimate later on.

It was a slow Monday for the single currency, with some early trading losses against the pound but a levelling off towards the end of the day to finish things off at 1.3850 (Interbank). This only real data of note was Germany’s industrial production data which came in under anticipated levels by 0.6% at 0.2%; it was, however, better than November’s results. The drop in oil price (and other commodities) also effected EUR with it sitting at a 7 year low.

Today we’ll see EU finance ministers meet – if anything related to monetary policy is mentioned then expect to see some movements in the markets.

With an interest rate hike in the US an almost foregone conclusion for next week following strong non-farm payrolls data last week, we did, surprisingly, see a dollar sell-off. USD trade has been rather busy of late, so this comes as a surprise given that USD recently reached an 8- month high. One of the reasons for the dip may be down to the commodities sell-off we’ve seen and the worries about how it might affect the US economy. Despite all this, we saw yesterday how prominent Fed members were saying the time is ripe for a rate rise.