Brexit, Bank of England and Norwegian krone

22 Mar 2019

The key event on Thursday was the announcement of the results of the Bank of England meeting. As expected, there were no surprises: the rate left unchanged, as the volume of the quantitative easing program. However, the statement that perhaps a gradual limited tightening of the policy may be needed, can be interpreted as a “hawkish” and this is good for pound. And before that, the British currency ignored the excellent data on retail sales in the UK in February (+ 0.4% m / m + 4.0% y / y, with the forecast -0.4% m / m + 3.3% y / y).

The reason for such attitude is clear. This, of course, is about Brexit. Recall yesterday the EU had to give the UK a response regarding the postponement of Brexit. Brussels gave Teresa May a two-week delay. The current situation is: if next week the British Parliament does not approve the deal, then by April 12, Britain should decide whether to seek a much longer delay or British leave the EU without a deal. This could be used to buy the pound cheaper.

Meanwhile, The Central Bank of Norway, raised the rate on Thursday. This is the second increase since last September. Against the background of the negative rates of the ECB, such actions of the Central Bank look simply defiant. As a result, the Norwegian krone continues to strengthen in the foreign exchange market. We recommend to pay attention to its medium-term purchases. Considering how aggressively the Bank of Norway is behaving. The current uptrend of the krona is in the process of being formulated

Today is going to be kind of busy with macroeconomic statistics data such as: retail sales and inflation in Canada, indices of business activity in the Eurozone and the United States, so it is not going to be boring.

Our basic trading positions are unchanged: we are looking for points for selling the dollar in the foreign exchange market. We are buying oil and gold, increasing the short position in ruble, and now we are taking a medium-term long position in the Norwegian krone.