
Please try another search
By Senad Karaahmetovic
The British pound hit a fresh record low against the U.S. dollar in continued response to the U.K. government's announced tax cuts on Friday.
The GBP/USD slipped to $1.0357 overnight before recovering to trade near the $1.07 handle at 06:00 EST (10:00 GMT) in what has been an extremely volatile trading session. Today’s low marks a new record low after breaking the 1985 low.
On Friday, the U.K. Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng unveiled a huge tax-cutting package.
"I'm always calm. Markets move all the time. It's very important to keep calm and focus on the longer term strategy,” Mr. Kwarteng said today.
On the other hand, UK bond yields continued to surge as investors continued to ramp up bets on aggressive tightening by the Bank of England. According to Bloomberg, the market is now pricing in 175bps of BOE tightening by November and 400bps of hikes by September 2023. If this scenario materializes, it would push the bank rate to 6.25%, the highest since 1999.
In response to the most recent developments, as well as a projected upside for US interest rates, bond yields, and the dollar, a Morgan Stanley strategist cut price targets on both EUR/USD and GBP/USD.
“Our new forecast for GBPUSD to fall to 1.02 should support continued outperformance from large-cap UK equities at both the price and EPS level. Our new Dec-22 target of EURGBP at 0.91 suggests a further 5-10% outperformance of FTSE100 over SX5E and over FTSE250,” the strategist said in a client note.
The new forecast for EUR/USD calls for a drop to 0.93 by December 2022.
Similarly, a Goldman Sachs strategist says the market is concerned that the Bank of England failed to impose a more aggressive tone last week.
“Considering the size and breadth of the fiscal package, even a 75bp hike seems likely to leave the BoE behind the curve on taming inflation and well below market pricing which is now close to 100bp,” the strategist told the bank’s clients.
Along these lines, the strategist cut EUR/GBP forecasts to 92, 0.90, 0.88 in 3, 6, and 12 months (vs 0.85, 0.83, and 0.84 previously), respectively. He also downgraded GBP/USD forecasts for 3, 6, and 12 months ahead to 1.05, 1.08, and 1.19 (vs 1.14, 1.17, and 1.25 previously), respectively.
Are you sure you want to block %USER_NAME%?
By doing so, you and %USER_NAME% will not be able to see any of each other's Investing.com's posts.
%USER_NAME% was successfully added to your Block List
Since you’ve just unblocked this person, you must wait 48 hours before renewing the block.
I feel that this comment is:
Thank You!
Your report has been sent to our moderators for review
Add a Comment
We encourage you to use comments to engage with other users, share your perspective and ask questions of authors and each other. However, in order to maintain the high level of discourse we’ve all come to value and expect, please keep the following criteria in mind:
Enrich the conversation, don’t trash it.
Stay focused and on track. Only post material that’s relevant to the topic being discussed.
Be respectful. Even negative opinions can be framed positively and diplomatically. Avoid profanity, slander or personal attacks directed at an author or another user. Racism, sexism and other forms of discrimination will not be tolerated.
Perpetrators of spam or abuse will be deleted from the site and prohibited from future registration at Investing.com’s discretion.