The GBP/USD is seeing choppy action in Thursday’s pre-London market session, bouncing between 1.2770 and 1.2790, with thin liquidity on the cards as GBP traders await further developments on Brexit.
European-theater market flows will be deciding the Cable’s direction, with a thinned-out economic calendar on the offering for Thursday, though a late-session speech from the Bank of England’s (BoE) Michael Saunders, a voting member of the BoE’s Monetary Policy Committee, will be dropping on markets around 20:55 GMT. Speaking at the Annual South West Economics Dinner, Saunders could drive market reactions with his words as an MPC-voting member, especially with US money absent from Thursday’s US trading session as American institutions observe the US Thanksgiving holiday.
Brexit continues to lead front-and-center for Sterling traders, and investors hoping for firmer details from Prime Minister Theresa May’s Wednesday meeting with the European Commission’s Jean-Claude Juncker saw the can get kicked out to Saturday’s short-notice Brexit meeting: PM May’s Brexit deal, which finds itself on life support in a race to get it pushed through ahead of the EU’s Brexit Summit on Monday, isn’t even completed yet, and Pound investors are growing nervous despite negotiators’ assurances that “progress is being made”. Germany’s Angela Merkel is threatening to not even bother showing up to Monday’s Brexit Summit if the current deal isn’t even finalized, but France’s Emmanuel Macron is encouraging the two sides to continue coming together, stating that he welcomes the opportunity to actually weigh in on the talks.
Ireland’s Northern border issue remains roughly stitched-over, but Spain has dragged issues about Gibraltar’s coast into the mix as the Spanish government demands clarity on the island’s borders be worked into the Brexit deal bilaterally, a move that throws a serious wrench in the works as PM May quickly finds herself running out of time to secure a Brexit deal, but even then, significant risks remain ahead: May’s own Tory conservative party that currently rules the roost in the UK’s own parliament, loaded with Eurosceptic Brexiteers, are continuously threatening to automatically vote down any Brexit deal penned by May, regardless of its content, an eleventh-hour move that would leave the UK at risk to face a no-deal, hard-Brexit head-on.
