-Mark Bolsom is Head of the UK Trading Desk at Travelex Global Business Payments. The opinions expressed are his own.-

Sterling tumbled to a one week low against the dollar in trading this morning, after the Bank of England delivered its latest quarterly inflation and growth forecasts today.

- Mark Bolsom is head of the UK Trading Desk at Travelex Global Business Payments. The opinions expressed are his own. -

As widely expected, Chancellor George Osborne took a tough stance in his first budget and unveiled some “unavoidable” cuts and taxes.

- Mark Bolsom is the Head of the UK Trading desk at Travelex Global Business Payments. The opinions expressed are his own-

Later today, Chancellor George Osborne will unveil his first budget, where he is widely expected to take a tough stance. To the financial markets, this emergency budget is the agenda-setting piece of this parliament. Markets, media, consumers and businesses alike have all braced themselves for what has been billed as the sharpest fiscal tightening since the end of the Second World War.

-Mark Bolsom is head of the UK Trading Desk at Travelex, the world’s largest non-bank FX payments specialist. The opinions expressed are his own.-

The final results are almost fully in and despite months of intense speculation the hung parliament outcome has come as an almighty shock to the financial markets.

- Mark Bolsom is the Head of the UK Trading Desk at Travelex, the world’s largest non-bank FX payments specialist.  The opinions expressed are his own. He will participate in a Reuters Budget live blog at noon GMT on Wednesday, March 24, 2010. Please tune in and join the discussion. -

While the UK’s financial media has billed the 2010 budget as Chancellor Alistair Darling’s most important – due to their assumption it will be his last – it seems that the financial markets have taken a more relaxed view, feeling its importance has been somewhat overstated by the media.

-Mark Bolsom is the Head of the UK Trading Desk at Travelex, the world’s largest non-bank FX payments specialist. The opinions expressed are his own.-

Greece has been dominating the headlines lately with many commentators heavily criticising its burgeoning deficits and perceived threat to eurozone stability. But is such heavy criticism really justified, or are the Greeks simply being made scapegoats for systematic failings? After all, Greece did not cause the current financial crisis, but is instead one of the major victims.

- Mark Bolsom is the Head of the UK Trading Desk at Travelex, the world’s largest non-bank FX payments specialist. -

Political debate exploded at the weekend after two national opinion polls revealed that a hung parliament is thought to be the most likely outcome of the general election, which must be held by June 2010.

- Mark Bolsom is the Head of the UK Trading Desk at Travelex, the world’s largest non-bank FX payments specialist. The opinions expressed are his own. -

Thursday’s decision by the Bank of England to keep both interest rates and its asset purchasing programme on hold was hardly a surprise and had been largely priced in to markets.

-Mark Bolsom is the Head of the UK Trading Desk at Travelex, the world’s largest non-bank FX payments specialist. The opinions expressed are his own.-

As expected, Gross Domestic Product figures released today confirmed that the UK has finally emerged from recession. According to the Office for National Statistics, the UK economy grew by 0.1 percent during the last 3 months of 2009, bringing to an end 6 consecutive quarters of contraction.

- Mark Bolsom is the Head of the UK Trading Desk at Travelex, the world’s largest non-bank FX payments specialist. The opinions expressed are his own.-

One of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee members, Andrew Sentance, was quoted this morning suggesting that the Bank of England will need to consider raising interest rates this year if a “recovering economy poses a threat to inflation.”