5th June

Top Currency Pairs Monday 5th June 04:00 UTC GBP/USD: 1.24389 (Last Week: 1.23489) EUR/USD: 1.07027 (Last Week: 1.07062) GBP/EUR: 1.16222 (Last Week: 1.15343)

Market News

Pound Sterling The British Pound opened this morning’s trading session consolidating last week’s gains. In fact, Sterling’s recent ascent may have been a further response to the prior week’s sharp uplift in market-implied expectations for the Bank of England rate. The Bank's implied peak rate rose from just more than 4.75% to almost 5.5% after Office for National Statistics suggested homegrown inflation strengthened further in the UK during April when it had been widely expected to ease, leaving the BoE in a bind. Looking forward, market participants will keep an eye out for the release of the final UK Services PMI for a fresh impetus ahead of the US ISM Services PMI, due later during the early North American session.

Euro

The Euro was buoyed by mounting expectations for further tightening by the European Central Bank after last week's cooler-than-expected eurozone CPI. In fact, ECB President Christine Lagarde pointed towards further interest rate hikes after the CPI release, saying there was still "ground to cover" in the tightening cycle, but other ECB officials have been more dovish with their comments. Nevertheless, there is more inflation data to study today, with May eurozone producer prices expected to show a hefty monthly drop of 3.1%. Looking forward, there are also German trade numbers and PMI data for much of the European region to digest during the session, while ECB President Christine Lagarde is also scheduled to speak at a hearing before the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs.

U.S. Dollar The U.S. Dollar traded near two-month highs amid uncertainty over whether the Federal Reserve would hike interest rates in June. In fact, the dollar index and dollar index futures held strong as data on Friday showed nonfarm payrolls jumped far more than expected in May, pointing to a robust U.S. labour market. The reading, coupled with stronger-than-expected print on the Fed’s preferred inflation index earlier in May, presented a hawkish outlook for the central bank in June. But a slew of Fed officials touted the possibility of a pause in rate hikes this month, calling on the Fed to take stock of its year-long rate hike crusade against inflation. Ultimately, this brewed some uncertainty over how the central bank may act next week, especially given that other facets of the U.S. economy appear to be slowing.

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