The US Dollar is currently feeling the weight of the fading hope of raising interest rates to be the weakest performer over the last seven days, falling by a cent and three quarters against Sterling. Despite this fall, it wasn’t the worst performing currency yesterday as that honour went to the Swiss Franc, losing proportionally more than twice as much as the US Dollar.

The market’s lack of zest for the Swissy stemmed largely from an increased appetite for risk among investors. Stock markets around the world were mostly higher, dulling the allure of the safe-havens. The Euro fell as did the Japanese Yen.

Having been bitten by them so often in the past, investors have learned to be cautious about the UK manufacturing and industrial production data. They were therefore mildly pleased when three of the four measures came in above forecast and Sterling came close to winning the day.

The only disappointment was the year-on-year -0.8% fall in manufacturing output and even that was an improvement on the previous month’s -1.2% decline. Monthly increases of 0.5% for manufacturing and 1.0% for the more broadly-based industrial output reassured investors that it is not all doom-and-gloom in the industrial sector. Sterling was stronger on the day by an average of 0.4%.

The most eagerly-awaited events on today’s agenda will be the minutes of monetary policy meetings at the Bank of England, the European Central Bank and the US Federal Reserve. Investors will be looking for clues to the timing of interest rate increases or, in the case of the ECB, hints at further stimulus. Broadly speaking, hints at interest rate rises will be currency positive; more ECB stimulus will be negative for the single currency.