Major currencies have weakened against the Dollar today, with Sterling down 0.6% at time of writing to an 8-session low of 1.236. Sterling has also underperformed the Euro, with the GBP/EUR cross back down to 1.143. Global equity markets have been more subdued with European and US equities broadly unchanged from yesterday.
Sterling’s underperformance could be due to news reports that the covid-19 death toll (per-capita) in the UK is now the highest in Europe and that the national lockdown will only be eased very gradually. Prime Minister Johnson is due to announce on Sunday the timeline and details of an easing of lockdown measures due to take effect on Monday.
The main data release today was for (ADP) US private sector employment, with the collapse of over 20 million in April broadly in line with forecasts. Focus is now likely to turn to the official labour market release on Friday which will include public-sector employees as well as data on weekly earnings.
