PM Requests Brexit Answers from EU, GBP/AUD Exchange Rate Steady
UPDATED: The Pound (GBP) has seen a marginal improvement on earlier trade against the Australian Dollar (AUD) today following the latest Brexit speech.
Prime Minister Theresa May focused on the continued difficulties of the Brexit process, mainly discussing unresolved Irish border issues.
The Pound hasn’t tumbled after Mrs May’s remarks, potentially because the speech offered a constructive tone.
Urging an imminent resolution to the Irish border problem, Mrs May called on the EU to:
‘Not simply … fall back onto previous positions which have already been proven unworkable, but to evolve their position in kind.’
Fall in Government Borrowing Fails to Boost GBP/AUD Exchange Rate
The Pound (GBP) continues its struggle against the Australian Dollar (AUD) today, declining in the GBP/AUD pairing to a level of AU$1.76 on the interbank exchange rate.
This deterioration comes after the release of UK government borrowing data for June, which has shown an expansion of May’s £-3.85bn deficit to £-4.53bn.
Looking at the data more broadly, this feeds into the lowest level of Q2 borrowing since 2007, although this positive development has failed to support Pound Sterling today.
Concerns about PM’s Irish Border Speech Limit GBP/AUD Exchange Rate Movement
Another factor keeping the GBP/AUD exchange rate in check today has been uncertainty about a speech from Prime Minister Theresa May.
Mrs May is due to make remarks about negotiations with the EU about the Irish border and is expected to take a combative stance by rejecting current EU proposals regarding the issue.
AUD/GBP Exchange Rate Rises on Controversial Trump Remarks
The Australian Dollar (AUD) has capitalised on a weak US Dollar (USD) today, rising against the Pound (GBP) and other regular peers.
This good performance is down to some offhand remarks by Donald Trump in the US, which have raised risk sentiment and pushed the AUD higher.
US President Donald Trump has suggested that China is intentionally weakening its currency and has also criticised the US central bank over its plans to raise interest rates, lowering USD trader confidence.
Weekly Pound to Australian Dollar Exchange Rate Forecast: Are GBP/AUD Gains ahead on CBI Data?
The Pound (GBP) has traded poorly against the Australian Dollar (AUD) this week, but there is a chance for it to recover on next week’s Confederation of British Industry (CBI) ecostats.
Tuesday will see the CBI measure of industrial orders for July, while Wednesday’s offerings will include business optimism and distributive trade data.
Current forecasts are for a higher industrial orders reading for July, alongside an increase in business confidence for the Q3 measurement.
The quantity of distributive trades is tipped to have slowed slightly in July, but with two potentially positive data releases we could still see some GBP/AUD exchange rate gains next week.
The coming week’s main Australian economic data release will be inflation rate stats out on Wednesday, covering price growth in Q2 2018.
The figures are predicted to show accelerating inflation rates for the quarterly and annual readings, which could cause Australian Dollar exchange rate gains on the day.
Higher inflation puts more pressure on the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) to consider raising interest rates, which some AUD traders believe are long overdue.