The pound has gained ground again today against all of the majors due to a tremendous GDP figure this morning, the year on year 2nd quarter figure was expected to come in at a paltry 1.1% growth, the release this morning came out at 1.6% growth. The response was to buy the pound and drive the GBP/EUR higher by 1.2%.
The cable rate has also shown significant movement rising all the way to its resistance at 1.4450 GBP/USD before running short of momentum and retracing slightly this afternoon. President Obama has sprung a surprise statement on the market this afternoon at 12 EDT, all we know at the moment is that it will be a economic statement.
The Stock markets are relatively mundane at the moment with the FTSE stabilizing just above 5300 and the DOW Jones and Nasdaq showing very little change.
This afternoon the ECB will release its stress test results and traders will be watching this release closely. A survey by Goldman Sachs predicted 10 of the 92 banks would fail the test and the Spanish newspaper El Pais has predicted that several of those banks will be Spanish.
The Canadian Dollar has suffered marginally as their CPI inflation data posted a slower rise than expected at 1.7% against the 1.9% expected figure. As this data was collated before the recent rise in interest rates it is safe to assume that the Canadian committee had access to this data when they decided to raise their benchmark rate earlier this week. The GBP/CAD rate has risen just over 1% today before running out of momentum at the 1.6110 GBP/CAD level, there was appetite to buy here which allowed the cross to retrace back to support at 1.600 GBP/CAD.
