#GBP ends the week pretty steady – 19th October 2015

Sterling ended last week pretty steady overall against the other dozen most actively-traded currencies. It was unchanged against the Euro, the Japanese Yen and the Australian Dollar from the previous day. Over the week Sterling closed up on Friday higher against all but the Kiwi Dollar. Its performance over the last month has been less impressive, falling against the lot of them with an average loss of -2.0%.

Among the data that didn’t make much difference on Friday were Euroland’s unchanged 0.2% inflation rate, a smaller-than-expected -0.2% decline in Canada’s manufacturing shipments, an in-line -0.2% fall in US industrial production. The only UK statistic was last night’s Rightmove house price index, which showed annual growth slowing from 6.4% to 5.6%.

Figures this morning showed Chinese economic growth had slowed on an annual basis; after expanding by 7.0% in the year to end-June 2015, China’s economy grew by 6.9% in the year to September 2015. However, quarterly growth accelerated from 1.7% to 1.8% between Q2 and Q3. The Aussie Dollar responded positively to the news, picking up half a cent as investors had apparently suspected the figures to be worse.

Exchange rates on Friday did almost nothing and remained mostly unchanged because there was no external force to get them moving. Today’s agenda is likely to mean more of the same.

It is hard to underestimate the number and importance of today’s ecostats, now the Chinese GDP and retail sales numbers are out of the way. We have the German central bank’s monthly report and America’s NAHB Housing Market Index. A speech this afternoon by the Federal Reserve’s Jeffrey Lacker and the minutes of the Reserve Bank of Australia’s policy meeting, which come out tonight, represent the only realistic chance of stimulation.

Today’s Canadian general election is something of a wild card. A change of government would be likely to affect the Loonie tomorrow.