The pound recorded its biggest monthly rise in more than a decade in July, although this was mainly due to a weaker dollar after a surge in US coronavirus cases and unease about the upcoming presidential election. But growing pressure to strike a Brexit trade deal before a transition period ends in December is leading to traders and investors being wary of the pound’s prospects, a Reuters poll has found.
Jordan Rochester at Nomura said: “The dip is because it seems like the uncertainty over Brexit will continue until we get to around September or October.
“So until we know what is going on it can’t trade as well.
“I lean towards a deal, but it doesn’t mean the same euphoria for sterling as it used to.
“The deal will be bare bones – it might be that in Q1 we are still adjusting to a new trading agreement and you do see all of the foretold Brexit border chaos.”
Against the euro EURGBP=, little movement was expected. One euro was worth around 90.3 pence On Wednesday, and the poll suggested it would be worth 90.0p in a month and 89.0p in a year.
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6.12am update: US job market recovery appears to be slowing
US private employers hired far fewer workers than expected in July as companies exhausted loans to help with wages and new COVID-19 infections flared up across the country, supporting the view that the nascent economic recovery was faltering.
“The economy will remain at risk of a renewed downturn so long as a vaccine or therapeutic for the virus remains out of reach,” said Oren Klachkin, lead U.S. economist at Oxford Economics in New York.
The ADP National Employment Report showed private payrolls increased by 167,000 jobs last month after jumping by 4.314 million in June. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast private payrolls would increase by 1.5 million in July.
Hiring weakened across the board last month. Payrolls for medium-sized businesses with 50 to 499 employees fell 25,000. The sharp step-down in hiring was attributed to the expiration of the US government’s Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and the resurgence in coronavirus cases.