Have You Seen The Pound?
Lordy, Lordy, it's about as popular as a ginger-haired step son this morning. What's going on? It's at a four month low of 1.11 against the euro and briefly plumbed below 1.63 against the dollar this morning.
The Bank of England said that the M4 money supply only increased 12.6% year-over-year in August, 13.8% is what had been expected.
Interest rates here seem set to remain around 0.5% for some considerable time, but in Europe it's 1%, in Australia they're 3%. As a bit of appetite for risk returns 7% in South Africa or even 8.75% in Brazil might start to tempt investors funds to flow elsewhere.
Also Lloyds, seeing signs of an economic recovery, fancy taking some of it's less toxic debts back out of the government's asset-protection scheme. Not so fast you cheeky buggers say the government, you've sold you soul to the Devil, you can't just have it back like that, you're my bitch now.
This is being viewed as a sign that the UK banking sector is not as strong or dynamic as it would like to think.
BNP Paribas yesterday forecast the the pound would be parity with the euro by early 2010.
The Bank of England said that the M4 money supply only increased 12.6% year-over-year in August, 13.8% is what had been expected.
Interest rates here seem set to remain around 0.5% for some considerable time, but in Europe it's 1%, in Australia they're 3%. As a bit of appetite for risk returns 7% in South Africa or even 8.75% in Brazil might start to tempt investors funds to flow elsewhere.
Also Lloyds, seeing signs of an economic recovery, fancy taking some of it's less toxic debts back out of the government's asset-protection scheme. Not so fast you cheeky buggers say the government, you've sold you soul to the Devil, you can't just have it back like that, you're my bitch now.
This is being viewed as a sign that the UK banking sector is not as strong or dynamic as it would like to think.
BNP Paribas yesterday forecast the the pound would be parity with the euro by early 2010.
