Pound tumbles on retail sales figures

The British pound has stabilized today after tanking in yesterday’s trading session on the back of disappointing data that may have ended any chances of the Bank of England raising interest rates next week.

Retail sales figures from the UK hit the market at 3 percent, which was well short of analysts’ expectations for a figure of 3.7 percent and significantly lower from last month’s figure of 4.5 percent.

Analysts cited many reasons for the disappointing figures such as the football and the unusually hot weather which may have deterred people from shopping.

“The World Cup and heatwave could conceivably have kept people out of the shops, but equally they could have contributed to a feel-good factor on the high street” said Jacob Deppe, head of trading at Infinox

“The pound dived faster than Neymar on June’s weak retail number. It crashed through the $1.30 floor to hit its lowest level against the Dollar for 10 months.” He added.

Up until a week ago, a majority of investors were betting on a rate hike from the BOE next week but the chances started to fall after the release of disappointing inflation figures.

This coupled with the retail sales numbers as well as the many uncertainties surrounding Brexit have now put the chances of a rate hike at less than 50 percent and if the BOE does in fact keep rates on hold the Pound is likely to see much bigger losses.

“That was a terrible set of retail sales figures which will do nothing to persuade the Bank of England to hike in August” said Neil Wilson, the chief market analyst for Markets.com

Combined with the disappointing CPI reading it suggests the MPC would be well advised to row back on plans to raise rates, a fact that seems to have been reflected by traders’ bets on sterling this morning.” he added.