The Pound is still heading towards a one-month low against the US Dollar, despite the recent release of two pieces of optimistic data for the UK.
According to statistics gathered by BDO LLP, despite the economic hardships facing the UK population shoppers well and truly entered the Christmas spirit, participating in a surge of spending.
The figures showed that over the five weeks ending on December 29th like-for-like sales were up by 1.9 per cent.
In a statement accompanying the data the BDO’s head of Retail and Wholesale commented: ‘This year, there has been a clear focus on protecting margins. By building up to Christmas early in a planned and leisured way, there has been less knee-jerk discounting. At the same time, consumers are continuing to feel the pinch of hard economic conditions and are being much more careful about when and where they spend their money.’
Unsurprisingly the type of purchasing which increased by the most during this festive period was online shopping, gaining by a whopping 30.9 per cent. Increasingly flexible delivery options was cited as one of the main reasons for this rise (but the recent awful weather may also have had something to do with it!)
The second piece of positive economic news for the UK came in the form of a report compiled by mortgage lender Halifax.
Although house prices in the fourth quarter were 0.3 per cent lower than in the same period of 2011, the data showed an unexpected increase in house prices in December of 1.3 per cent.
Economists widely predicted no change.
Martin Ellis, an economist with Halifax, asserted: ‘Overall, last year saw an even mix of monthly rises and falls, as prices lacked any real direction as both demand and supply pressures remained largely unchanged during 2012. We expect continuing broad stability in house prices nationally in 2013.’
Even after this data was released the Pound was not lifted from its recent run of declines against the US Dollar and remained largely unchanged against the Euro.
As of 10:00 am
The Pound to Euro exchange rate is currently trading at 1.2311
The Pound to US Dollar exchange rate is currently trading at 1.6050
The Pound to Australian Dollar exchange rate is currently trading at 1.5295
The Euro to US Dollar exchange rate is currently trading at 1.3033
The Euro to Pound exchange rate is currently trading at 0.8120
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