World Markets Updates

Feb. 11 2019

Where the UK Economy is Moving? 

The United Kingdom has many fun facts to touch upon such as tea, umbrellas and more. The British people drink about 10 times more cups of tea 🍵 than Americans. The weather in London might be raining and each year some 800,000 umbrellas are lost, but what about about economy’s weather? The economy is slowing lately with the GBP/USD rate is currently trading at 1.286 down by 0.6% today. The rate dropped below 1.29 on the weaker UK data updates.  The growth in the United Kingdom was at 6-year low, below expectation. GDP expanded 1.4% for year 2018. 1.3% y/y was the growth in Q4. On the quarter to quarter the economy grew just 0.2%.

Nonetheless, the FTSE closed higher 🔺 today at 7,129.11 +0.82% 

The condition for the economy in latest data showed a slowdown. Among recent changes Nissan announced it will not build a new model in Sunderland. At the same time, the visible trade balance for the December was 12.1 billion 🔻 British pounds for December. The overall trade deficit was 3.2 billion British pounds for the December. There was also a drop in the industrial production with current rate of 0.9% y/y.

Feb. 8 2019  

Japan Trade, JPY, SONY & Economy

Japan had better trade surplus number. The trade surplus was at 𝟐𝟏𝟔.𝟐 billion Japanese yen for December. In other news, SONY Corp. had a big moment. First in history share buyback of 100 billion Japanese yen by SONY put stock in a better mood. Shares increased 4.10% to 4,906 Japanese yen today. Meantime, the USD/JPY rate was moving to 109.7. 

Australia GDP

The Australia GDP forecast was downgraded by the Reserve Bank of Australia to 2.5%. The previous forecast was of 3.25% with housing downturn influencing the numbers. The forecast is for 2019 year ending in the June. Nonetheless, the interest rate view was more balanced. Australian dollar is trading near 1-month low of around 0.71 in AUD/USD.