September’s better-than-expected UK retail sales data, which comes on the heels of decent August growth, is another sign that the economy is still performing relatively solidly, ING’s FX analyst Francesco Pesole notes.
No strong argument against a move to 1.28 in GBP/USD
“The consumer is benefiting from strong real wage growth, though we don’t expect the growth rates we saw in the first half of the year to be repeated in the second. Still, growth data is of secondary interest for the BoE right now. This week’s surprise dip in services inflation is more important, suggesting back-to-back rate cuts are becoming more likely.”
“GBP has proven to be a bit more resilient than we had thought after that sharp downward surprise in services inflation on Wednesday. Cable has hovered around the 1.30 mark, and so far failed to make another decisive move lower. Still, we think the balance of risks remains skewed to the downside.”
“Even with less than two Bank of England cuts priced in by year-end, the two-year swap rate gap between sterling and the dollar has now tightened to 19bp from 55bp at the start of October. The last time we saw that spread around these levels (early August) GBP/USD was trading at 1.28, and barring major US data downside surprises, we see no strong argument against a move to that level.”
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