UK PM's call with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, GBP pressured

Ross J Burland FXStreet

Published on 17 December 2020 from Prime Minister's Office, 10 Downing Street, the UK government has released a statement which stresses that ''the situation in (our) talks with the EU is very serious tonight. Progress seems blocked and time is running out.

Meanwhile, the FT states that ''a row over Brussels’ €750bn Covid recovery package has become a sticking point as UK trade talks go to the wire after Boris Johnson warned that EU-level spending should not be exempt from state-aid restrictions in a post-Brexit agreement .''

The situation in our talks with the EU is very serious tonight. Progress seems blocked and time is running out. The Prime Minister @BorisJohnson set out his concerns about the state of play to Commission President @vonderleyen this evening. https://t.co/wTOGrvXbWT
— David Frost (@DavidGHFrost) December 17, 2020

Full official statement

The Prime Minister spoke to Commission President Ursula von der Leyen this evening about the state of play in the UK / EU negotiations.

The Prime Minister underlined that the negotiations were now in a serious situation. Time was very short and it now looked very likely that agreement would not be reached unless the EU position changed substantially.

He said that we were making every effort to accommodate reasonable EU requests on the level playing field, but even though the gap had narrowed some fundamental areas remained difficult.

On fisheries he stressed that the UK could not accept a situation where it was the only sovereign country in the world not to be able to control access to its own waters for an extended period and to be faced with fisheries quotas which hugely disadvantaged its own industry. The EU’s position in this area was simply not reasonable and if there was to be an agreement it needed to shift significantly.

The Prime Minister repeated that little time was left. He said that, if no agreement could be reached, the UK and the EU would part as friends, with the UK trading with the EU on Australian-style terms.

The leaders agreed to remain in close contact.

GBP/USD update

The pound is under pressure and on the brink of falling through yet another layer of 15-min support towards the 1.3540 support and prior resistance:

Author

Ross J Burland

FXStreet

Ross J Burland, born in England, UK, is a sportsman at heart. He played Rugby and Judo for his county, Kent and the South East of England Rugby team.

GBP/USD keeps the vacillating tone near 1.3650

GBP/USD struggles to extend its ongoimg recovery on Monday, this time flirting with the 1.3650 zone. Indeed, Cable trades without clear direction, although it manages well to maintain its business in the upper end of the recent range, challenging multi-week tops despite the decent recovery in the Greenback.

EUR/USD drifts lower to the 1.1670 zone

EUR/USD navigates a tight range at the beginning of the week, hovering around the 1.1670 region amid humble losses. The pair’s decline follows a decent advance in the US Dollar while investors continue to closely follow developments from the US money market.

Gold pushes harder; focus is now on $4,700

Gold keeps its bullish pace well and sound and approaches the $4,700 mark per troy ounce for the first time since early May. The precious metal’s move higher comes despite slight gains in the US Dollar and a modest pullback in US Treasury yields across the curve.

Here's what I learned trading meme coins

I’ve been trading cryptocurrencies for the past seven years, with meme coins becoming one of the most exciting and implacable parts of my experience. I love them because they represent internet culture and community sentiment, and, let’s be honest, extreme speculation. Newly launched meme coins were especially tempting: get in early enough, I thought, and a small bet could turn into a huge return.

Bessent’s presser in focus

Preview: Busy week ahead, with Bessent kicking this off today, with things wrapping up with Warsh at Jackson Hole. For a month that should have been a temporary period of ‘quiet’, we had anything but last week, with the bond market and tariffs front and centre.

$20 billion offered, $2 billion taken: Why Treasury doubled its buyback cap

The US Treasury moved off its own calendar on Wednesday, and that is the part worth sitting with. At 12:32 GMT, the department said it would at least double the size of liquidity support buyback operations in the 10-year to 20-year and 20-year to 30-year sectors, lifting the maximum from $2 billion per operation to at least $4 billion, effective September 9 and running to November 4.