Pound Sterling is still climbing against The EUR after yesterday’s positive inflation release. Inflation dropped from 7.9% down to 6.8% in the year to July, with the main contributors being a drop in prices for; Energy, Petrol & Diesel, Milk, Bread & Cheese. Keeping inflation relatively high at the moment are the price increases in Hotels & Air Travel. It now looks even more certain that The Bank of England will raise interest rates again next month by 25 basis points, with the peak rate now forecast to reach 6%.

After positive UK GDP data, the Pound traded a little higher on Friday after a relatively disappointing performance over the week- the data showed that the UK economy has in fact still grown a little through this current cost of living crisis- for those of you in the UK this probably came as no surprises as the shopping centres etc are still extremely busy here- which is good news for the UK.

The US Dollar has edged lower this morning ahead of what is a key inflation release for The US. With headline CPI forecast to pick up slightly in July to 3.3%, while the core rate which excludes volatile food and energy prices is forecast to climb 4.8% on a year-on-year basis.

Last week the main event was the BoE interest rate hike, where the Central Bank raised interest rates by 25bps- but kept the stance of more hikes COULD happen if inflation were to go higher again, and that rates will stay high for at least a couple of years before any cuts are considered.

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With the latest stance from different central banks to slow down the tightening of monetary actions (pause or less interest rate hikes). There was no surprise yesterday when BoE raised interest rates by 25 basis points compared to its latest meeting in June of 50.

The markets have been very volatile over the past week with the main catalysts being the Fed and ECB interest rate decisions, both pushing rates up by 25 bps each, and the markets assuming that there will be a pause on rate hikes for the foreseeable future, when both Central Banks essentially stated that no further hikes were given and will be data-driven instead - over the last week we have seen the Dollar strengthen and the EURUSD price move from 1.12 down to 1.09 and GBPUSD from 1.2990 down to 1.27.d this week.

A week full of economic data with focus on Europe and the US, we end the week with further data for both areas. But first a recap of what unfolded this week.