Pound Heading Down AgainMarket Review, July 19, 2018

On Thursday, the British pound falls down quickly against the dollar. The pair is currently trading at $1.3027, near its Sep 2017 lows.

The most negative factor for the pound was the inflation information. Once this report was released, the investors determined the likelihood of the BoE rate hike as 70% or 80%, which is quite high, but has not supported the British currency so far, or even quite the reverse. The macroeconomic stats are brought to nothing by the Boris Johnson's speech where he is expected to severely criticize May's policy regarding Brexit. This puts the pound well under pressure.

As for other fundamentals, the UK CPI in July remained unchanged at 2.4% YoY, despite the expectations at 2.5%. Meanwhile, the base inflation is edging down, reaching just 1.9% YoY in June compared to 2.1% in May.

The investors get somewhat worried about other inflation stats, too. Thus, the PPI input rose by just 0.2% MoM in June after skyrocketing by 3.3% in May, while the PPI output added just 0.1%, after increasing by 0.5% in May.

Brexit is still the most important point for the pound, and the more politicians are against 'smooth' Brexit, the more uncertain and nervous the market is.