A soft, Trump-fearing dollar, displeased at the lack of fiscal detail on offer from the President-elect, has given sterling a chink of light this morning, causing cable to climb back above $1.22 with a half a percent rise. This in turn clipped the FTSE’s wings, leaving it with a meagre 10 point increase as the morning went on. The UK index also wasn’t helped by a flaccid set of commodity stocks, the major players trickling into the red after China-inspired losses for Brent Crude and copper.
Things were a bit livelier in the Eurozone, with the DAX and CAC up 0.5% and 0.7% respectively. Healthy gains from the likes of Deutsche Bank, Commerzbank, Societe Generale and BNP Paribas, which are all up between 1.5% and 2.5%, seems to be driving the growth.
The same uncertainties plaguing the dollar seem to be affecting the Dow Jones, which is set to open around the 19900 mark for the umpteenth time in the last month or so. The index did well to recover from its heavier losses during yesterday’s trading, though that is little comfort to those desperate for the index to finally hit 20000. In terms of this afternoon’s data, the main items seem more dollar- than Dow-oriented; the retail sales figure is expected to climb from 0.1% to 0.5% month-on-month, something that could ease the greenback’s losses, as could the forecast rise in consumer sentiment to 98.6.
