Rounding out an overnight session that saw a couple of notable FX moves is the pound, which dropped from a 10-month high after hotly anticipated UK CPI data came in, well, not hot.
June inflation fell to 2.6% y/y, missing estimates of 2.9%. The print was near the low end of the estimate range. U.K. June Core CPI came in at 2.4% y/y vs est. 2.6%.
That’s pretty notable considering sterling had just hit a 10-month high amid fraught Brexit negotiations:
The idea here, obviously, is that this reduces the chances of a BoE rate hike.
“The Bank of England is the winner of the day,”’ Jordan Rochester, a foreign-exchange strategist at Nomura International in London said. “We could break below $1.30 again, just because those guys who put their short-term longs on might re-position.”
“The slowdown in inflation will support the arguments of the members of Monetary Policy Committee who contend that the U.K. economy is weakening while the pick-up in inflation may only be temporary,” Bloomberg notes.
10Y yields dove to their lowest levels since last month:
“I tend to feel more bearish than bullish and the CPI helped that case,” Steve Barrow, London-based head of Group-of-10 currency strategy at Standard Bank mused. ‘‘The Bank of England is barking up the wrong tree when it comes to raising rates.”
Well ok then.
