UK News

Tories could be making sterling a rod for their own back

Talking down the pound could have some pretty bad consequences.

Ever since the debacle of sterling being forced out of the European exchange rate in September 1992, British officials and politicians have maintained a stiff upper lip when talking about the pound.

The Conservative government spent billions of pounds and jacked up interest rates to defend the currency back then, but to no avail. The party’s reputation for economic competence was lost, paving the way for Labour’s big win in 1997.

The one lesson that everyone obeyed was there was no point trying to manipulate the currency because you could not buck the market.

I can only remember one occasion when Gordon Brown, chancellor of the exchequer for a decade before he became prime minister, made the kind of currency comment that news agencies and euro zone politicians love.

No one can be happy with an 18 percent rise in the pound, he said in 1997 soon after taking office. Since then, the British usually don’t even like repeating the standard G7 language on currencies, so scared are they of mayhem in markets.

Could the Conservatives be about to change all that? They certainly appear to be playing with fire. Former chancellor and current Conservative business spokesman Ken Clarke warned on Tuesday that the country could soon be facing another sterling crisis.

from Global Investing:

Global FTSE 100 shrugs off parochial UK GDP data

Britain's FTSE 100 seems to be almost impervious to any bad data that can be thrown at it. GDP data shocked the market showing the UK unexpectedly contracted in the third quarter.

Sterling tumbled more than a cent against the greenbackand gilts jumped while the FTSEurofirst 300 pan-European equity index trimmed gains considerably.

But Britain's FTSE shrugged it off, hugging its 1 percent gains in the face of data which shows the UK economy is still ailing badly.

 It is the cosmopolitan nature of the FTSE which is keeping it buoyant. Miners and energy firms make up over 32 percent of the index, while miners banks, also very much global institutions make up a further 16 percent.

Howard Wheeldon on BGC Partners says:

"The FTSE is a function of globalalisation and trading conditions and growth elsewhere in the world have more of an impact than domestic growth. If the global recession is over and demand is picking up internationally, it's all the more reason to close your eyes to what's going on in the tiny island that it happens to be registered in."

from Global Investing:

Pity Poor Pound

Britain's pound has long been the whipping boy of notoriously fickle currency markets, but there are worrying signs that it's not just hedge funds and speculators who have lost faith in sterling. Reuters FX columnist Neal Kimberley neatly illustrated yesterday just how poor sentiment toward sterling in the dealing rooms has become and the graphic below (on the sharp buildup of speculative 'short' positsions seen in U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission data) shows how deeply that negative view has become entrenched.              

 While the pound's inexorable grind down to parity with the euro captures the popular headlines, the Bank of England's index of sterling against a trade-weighted basket of world currencies shows that weakness is pervasive. The index has lost more than a quarter of its value in little over two years -- by far the worst of the G4 (dollar, euro, sterling and yen) currencies over the financial crisis. The dollar's equivalent index has shed only about a third of the pound's losses since mid-2007, while the euro's has jumped about 10% and the yen's approximately 20% over that period.

There's no shortage of negatives -- Britain's deep recession, recent housing bust, near zero interest rates and money printing, soaring government budget deficit (forecast at more than 12% pf GDP next year, it's the highest of the G20) and looming general election in early 2010. In the relative world of currency traders, not all of these are necessarily bad for the pound -- the country is emerging tentatively from recession, the dominant financial services sector is recovering rapidly and  short-term interest rates (3-month Libor at least) do offer better returns than the dollar, yen, Swiss franc or Canadian dollar. 

But recent data from the IMF on global hard currency reserves shows there may be a more disturbing exit of central bank reserve managers from the pound (no stranger to process of losing reserve currency status, as its pole position was ceded to the dollar after WWI).  Sterling's share of the almost $7 trln of world central bank reserves -- which are rising sharply again after a brief hiatus due to the credit crunch -- is being steadily eroded. 

Although nominal reserve holdings of sterling (the rise of which prior to the crisis was seen as a powerful supporter of both the currency and gilt market) did rise by more than $10 bln in the second quarter, they remain about $24 billion below the peaks of Q2 2008. What's more, Citi economist Michael Saunders estimates that once you adjust for revaluation effects of currency rate swings, central bank holdings of sterling actually fell in Q2 this year.  He reckons that, accounting for these adjustments, Q2 was the second consecutive quarter of net sterling sales by central banks and that the 4 billion pound drop in nominal sterling holdings was the biggest on record. Saunders concludes:

The huge inflows of global FX reserves into sterling and gilts have played a big role in financing the fiscal deficit in recent years. At present, the fiscal deficit is being wholly funded by the BoE, but sterling remains vulnerable and gilts seem highly vulnerable as and when QE ends.

(Graphs by Scott Barber and IMF/Citi)

Is powerful Mandy talking up the euro?

When Prime Minister Gordon Brown reshuffled his cabinet last week, fending off a challenge to his authority, a significant outcome was the creation of one of the most powerful ministerial jobs Britain has seen in years.

Peter Mandelson, a former European commissioner who has twice served in British governments in the past and twice been forced to resign, was reconfirmed as secretary of state for business, but also given greatly expanded authorities that make him a powerful if unofficial number two to Brown.

Much fun has been made of Mandelson’s new title, which because he has been elevated to the House of Lords in order to serve in the cabinet now officially reads as:

Two sides to sterling’s tumble

Sterling has extended its losses against the dollar to its lowest level in more than two years , trading just above $1.85. As recently as mid-July one pound would buy two dollars and there were plenty of tales of holidaymakers rushing to the United States to make the most of it.

It’s not hard to see why sterling is under pressure, even though inflation is currently well above target and the highest in years: rising unemployment, falling house prices, large trade and budget deficits, and slowing economic growth.

In a gloomy assessment of the economy this week Bank of England Governor Mervyn King said economic growth would be flat for the next year or so and that inflation would rise to 5 percent or above before falling. Economists had thought accelerating inflation would prevent the Bank from cutting rates, but its suggestion that inflation will begin to ease raised expectations of interest rate cuts. Lower interest rates mean investors get lower returns on sterling deposits, which makes the pound less attractive.

Meanwhile, the dollar has been strengthening amid evidence that the slowing economy is a global trend, rather than one limited to the U.S., meaning investors are bailing out of the pound and the euro. The dollar has also gained on the back of falling commodity prices and concern over the eurozone economy.

Just how far the pound will go is anyone’s guess. Citi’s Michael Saunders even predicts there could be a return to the $1.55 level that sterling averaged between 1993 and 2002. “It would not be a surprise to see a return to those levels in the next 12-18 months,” he says in a note to investors.

There are two sides to the falling sterling coin though.

The pound’s fall will hurt holidaymakers who have benefitted from a strong pound when traveling overseas- and make it more expensive for people to buy second homes abroad.