Pound US dollar exchange rate: GBP sinks against USD as Dominic Raab resigns

This is down 1.5 per cent on the day at the time of writing.

With Brexit news headlines coming in thick and fast, the pound finds itself being tossed around on currency markets this morning, sinking against all the majors.

In the immediate aftermath of the resignation of Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab, the pound slumped sharply against the dollar, losing over a cent in minutes.

Mr Raab resigned following yesterday’s Cabinet meeting in which Theresa May presented her 585-page EU divorce agreement to her close colleagues in an attempt to secure backing from them before presenting it to Parliament.

POUND LIVE: LATEST GBP STERLING MOVEMENT HERE

Markets fear that further resignations may be in the offing, meaning the likelihood of the Prime Minister being able to pass the agreement through Parliament could diminish.

The turmoil is not just hitting the pound.

The Eurozone is being equally affected by Brexit, currency traders are pulling out of the Euro and piling into the safe haven US dollar.

And although it is political news driving Sterling at the moment, this morning’s main economic ecostats release has not helped the British currency either.

In another blow to Sterling retail sales, excluding fuel, were expected to have risen slightly in October, but in actual fact showed a contraction of 0.4 per cent.

This is the second monthly contraction in a row and will add to fears that the UK economy could be slowing sharply as high street stores struggle to stay in business.

On the US side of things, yesterday’s inflation data was generally positive, with October’s core inflation rate printing at 2.5 per cent, which was a 0.2 per cent increase over the previous month.

Following on from this, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell gave a Q&A session at the Dallas Fed in which he delivered an optimistic appraisal of the US economy and reconfirmed the US central bank would be continuing to raise rates and cut its QE programme at a steady pace.

Mr Powell’s positivity caused the dollar to rise against the pound, although his warning that there were “growing signs of a bit of a slowdown for 2018”, was also noted by traders.

source: express.co.uk