As the Monday session came to an end, the Pound rounded off a fairly quiet day as the foreign exchange rates showed that it finished at 1.1411 against the Euro and 1.2443 against the US Dollar. This slow movement in the currency was mainly down to a lack of economic data, while investors are still waiting on further news from Boris Johnson and his plan to ease lockdown restrictions, and kickstart the economy again. However, today the UK’s Services PMI will be released and that is likely to prevent the pound from making any upward movement.
It was much the same for the Euro on Monday as there was a significant lack of movement and this was down to the release of April’s manufacturing PMI. This indicated the factory sector saw a lower-than-expected growth during April and this halted any sort of interest from investors who might have been considering taking positions, or making international payments, following the easing of some restrictions.
It was a strong start for the US Dollar after market sentiment was pushed down during the weekend which saw an increase in demand for the safe-haven currency. Despite this, the gains that the Dollar saw on Monday might be stripped back as the ISM non-manufacturing PMI is likely to indicate that there was a vast drop in activity in the US service sector during April.