This week is a typically sleepy August one, without major policy decisions or economic releases to drive markets. A notable development last week was the late recovery in the euro, which finished the week only slightly down against the dollar in spite of the FOMC hawkishness, strong US payrolls and yet more negative news on the inflation front. We are keen to see whether the euro continues to hold out relatively well this week.

GBP

The August meeting of the Bank of England had no major impact on Sterling, as the Bank kept policy unchanged and markets continue to focus exclusively on Brexit developments.

Our view that no solution to the Brexit dilemma is possible without a general election was boosted last week when a pro-Remain Liberal Democrat victory on a Conservative seat cut Johnson’s parliamentary lead to just one. Sterling in fact managed to stabilise last week, ending the week essentially unchanged against the euro.

EUR

The European Central Bank must have been disappointed by the July flash inflation report. Core inflation dropped 0.2% to 0.9%, and is showing no signs of the sustained upward trend it would need to reach the ECB target level. After the disappointing PMI and inflation news, the ECB is now all but certain to introduce additional monetary stimulus at the September meeting.

USD

It is somewhat surprising that the US dollar didn’t perform even better versus its main G10 peers than it did last week. In addition to the Federal Reserve surprising markets with a more cautious than expected outlook for future cuts, the payroll report for July was quite strong, and included a positive surprise in wage growth. Perhaps dollar holders were rattled by yet another outburst from Trump in the US-China trade conflict.

With little economic news of importance this week, headlines around the Chinese retaliation should drive the US dollar performance.