Pound under pressure, GDP & dollar

20 dic 2019

There was a lot of talks about Trump Impeachment. Despite the decision of the House of Representatives, the chances of gaining Senate support are extremely low (gaining 2/3 of the vote is almost impossible). So the reluctance of the dollar to fall against this formally negative fundamental background is generally understandable.

And if the dollar yesterday felt relatively confident in the foreign exchange market, the British pound continued to be under pressure.

The day for the GBP began with failure: retail sales (MoM) November f -0.6%, however, the experts expected an increase + 0.2% (MoM). As a result, this decline formed the longest series of monthly retail sales in the country since 1996. A series of the fundamental negative for the pound continued the Bank of England.

The central bank did not lower the rate but made it clear that considering such an option. Lowering the forecast by the Central Bank on UK GDP growth rates in 2020 by 0.1%is not optimism news for pound buyers. So the results of the meeting of the Bank of England are “dovish”, which was against the British currency.

The fate is not in the hands of the Bank of England or macroeconomic indicators but in the hands of Brexit. Despite Johnson’s statements on Monday, we continue to believe in the deal and the “soft” Brexit, which means that the pound will certainly grow, with growth rates up to 1000 pips. Accordingly, the lower the pound falls, the greater the growth. Therefore, we continue medium-term purchases of the pound, and today we buy on intraday from 1.30 (the entry point is too good to pass by, plus the Friday before the Christmas holidays - many want to take profits in short pound positions, which will contribute to its growth)

Today is unlikely to be calm. Besides the fact that it is necessary to process and take into account the prices the entire array of information that is hitting the financial markets this week, on Friday we are waiting for data on the GDP of the UK and the USA to come out, as well as statistics on retail sales in Canada. We do not expect any excessively strong directional movements, so we will adhere to the tactics of oscillatory trading on the intraday basis

As for medium-term positions, there are no changes: we buy the pound, the Japanese yen and gold, we sell the Russian ruble.