The Euro (EUR) to Pound Sterling (GBP) exchange rate was little moved on Monday as a lack of market moving data releases caused investors to sit back and wait for events later in the week.
Sterling eased slightly in the morning after a survey published by Halifax showed that the gap between supply and demand in the UK’s housing market looks likely to narrow as potential buyers get put off by high property prices.
Concerns that the high value of the Pound is beginning to have an impact on the UK’s exporters was also putting some downward pressure onto the currency.
A report released over the weekend showed that profit warnings from UK companies hit a three-year high as exporters were hit by the strong currency.
The Euro was continuing to be weighed upon by the diverging policy of the European Central Bank and its peers in the USA and UK. On Monday data out of Italy also put some pressure upon the currency.
According to data released by the national statistics institute Istat, business confidence in Italy’s manufacturing sector dropped slightly in July for a second consecutive month.
Confidence fell to 99.7 from June’s revised figure of 99.9. Economists had been expecting an unchanged figure.
Italy’s composite business confidence index, a broader indicator subsuming the retail, market-services and construction sectors, rose to 90.9 in June from 88.2 in June, lifted by an improvement in the construction sector, which had been particularly depressed in the previous months, as well as retail and market services, Istat said.
A report out of Ireland meanwhile offered some support showed that retail sales fell by 1.7% month on month in June but remained 4.8% higher than from the previous year.
Excluding car sales the volume of retail sales was unchanged on a monthly basis but was up by 3.6% year on year.
Ireland’s central bank also increased its growth forecast for the economy. It now expects the economy to grow by 2.5%, up from the 2% previously forecast.
Wednesday sees the release of the latest Eurozone business, consumer, and industrial economic sentiment data. Germany is also due to release its latest inflation data.
The next major piece of UK data is due on Friday and is Markit’s latest Manufacturing PMI report.
Euro Exchange Rates
[table width=”100%” colwidth=”50|50|50|50|50″ colalign=”left|left|left|left|left”]
Currency, ,Currency,Rate ,
Euro,
,US Dollar,1.3437 ,
Euro,, Pound Sterling,0.7913 ,
Euro,,Australian Dollar,1.4293 ,
Euro,,Canadian Dollar,1.4529 ,
Pound Sterling,,Euro,1.2636 ,
US Dollar,,Euro,0.7443 ,
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