As Friday came to a close, the Pound found itself range-bound after news started to emerge that coronavirus cases were reaching a critical point. This meant that the government is considering additional restrictions that could hold the economy back which includes a “circuit breaker” lockdown for two weeks. This could see businesses being forced to close and this news offset the promising retail figures that were released on Friday. As a result, the currency rounded off the day a 1.0915 against the Euro and 1.2933 according to the Foreign Exchange Market.
Once again, the Euro was held back by the fast increase of coronavirus cases throughout Europe. Many of these countries are going to need to implement stricter restrictions in order to slow down the rate of spread but this will more than likely have an impact on the single currency. Despite this, as trading got underway this morning, the EUR/GBP rate is strengthening.
Investors moved to seek safety in the US Dollar on Friday after Europe saw an increase in coronavirus cases. Along with this, the University of Michigan’s US consumer sentiment index helped to improve USD exchange rates as the improvement was better-than-expected.