Pound's Resilience: A Glimpse into Sterling's Strong Performance Amid Global Currency Movements

GBP

Sterling was the only G10 currency that managed to match the dollar's rise last week, ending higher against every other major currency. Two factors are contributing to the pound's outperformance: resilience in consumer demand, evidenced in recent economic activity data, and Bank of England relative hawkishness, which results in the highest interest rates in the G10 and a comparatively slow timetable for cuts in 2024.

This week the focus will be on the November GDP report, out on Friday. Economists expect to see a healthy rebound relative to October's contraction, which would be consistent with the rebound witnessed in the business activity PMI numbers. A technical recession as early as the final quarter of last year remains a possibility following the downward revision to the Q3 data, although we are quietly confident that this will be avoided once the official data for Q4 is released in the middle of February.