Sterling has been heaved around by weak economic data and the central bank’s hawkishness, but is reacting more to broader U.S. dollar strength around Washington’s debt ceiling talks this week.
As the week draws to a close, global markets are optimistic and bullish – optimistic that a U.S. debt default will be avoided and bullish that markets can withstand the rise in bond yields sparked by the latest wave of hawkish Fed-speak.
Wall Street, Treasury yields, implied U.S. interest rates and the dollar all rose on Thursday.
The dollar has also been the driver of the Chinese yuan’s latest decline to 7 to the dollar, and of moves in the yen, whose weakness has become another tailwind for Japanese stocks – now at their highest since August 1990 when markets were caught up in the country’s “bubble” era.
The ECB’s Isabel Schnabel speaks later in the day, but has also been steady in her message that the European Central Bank will keep raising borrowing costs until it sees core inflation decline sustainably and that market expectations for rate cuts are misplaced.
G7 leaders kicked off a three-day summit in Hiroshima on Friday, and the focus there is on fresh sanctions against Russia and what they say about China.
/cloudfront-us-east-2.images.arcpublishing.com/reuters/V6TM4XCEX5KMBPKODURPAJAHCI.jpg "Rehash on rates ahead as ECB, BOE and Fed speak 40")
