Pound euro exchange rate: GBP treads water as Draghi warns on Eurozone inflation

Thursday was a day pound investors will want to forget, with the exchange rate plunging by as much as 1.5 per cent as Brexit related chaos swept through currency markets.

The resignation of Cabinet members Dominic Raab and Work and Pensions Secretary Esther McVey put the frighteners on Sterling traders who feared more would follow.

In the event, no further resignations took place, with Theresa May arguing the case for her Brexit agreement to Parliament.

She later insisted during a press conference that she was going to stay the course and see the EU divorce deal through to the end.

POUND LIVE: LATEST GBP STERLING MOVEMENT HERE

All of this drama affected the euro too, with the single currency losing ground against other major peers, including the US dollar, over the day.

Perhaps euro traders were nevertheless relieved that Brexit news had taken the spotlight off Brussels’ impasse over the contentious Italian budget, with the ultimate deadline for Rome to make changes to its controversial spending plans having come and gone.

This morning, European Central Bank (ECB) President Mario Draghi gave a speech at a banking conference in Frankfurt where he spoke about Eurozone inflation.

Blaming the recent softening of price pressures on global uncertainty, Mr Draghi said: “If firms start to become more uncertain about the growth and inflation outlook, the squeeze on margins could prove more persistent.

“This would affect the speed with which underlying inflation picks up and therefore the inflation path that we expect to see in the quarters ahead.”

Despite his warning, Mr Draghi remained relatively upbeat about monetary policy, reaffirming his commitment to ending the ECB’s crisis bond buying programme, which will be wound down next month.

Hot on the heels of his speech, the latest Eurozone inflation data was released, proving that inflation is still holding up.

October’s Eurozone consumer price index came in bang on forecast, printing at a rate of 2.2 per cent, which was unchanged on September’s reading.

This was the last important bit of data for this week’s session, with the pound euro exchange rate likely to remain driven by political news rather than economics for the rest of today and into the early part of next week.

source: express.co.uk