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April 21th: Currency Markets Highlights

• Urgent cash call in Greece
• Euro slides against GBP
• UK election uncertainty drags on GBP/USD
• Aussie Dollar declines against USD

Sterling Comment

The pound rose against the euro on Monday, helped by robust British house price data and growing concerns about the risk of Greece leaving the euro zone driving flow into sterling assets. More on the urgent Greece situation below. GBPEUR is currently trading close to 1.3940.

UK election uncertainty and fresh demand for USD is renewing pressure on GBPUSD, which dropped to fresh session lows in the European morning, currently trading around 1.4875.

With increased volatility in the markets, feel free to reach out to your Personal Currency Concierge today to discuss any requirements you have pending, or log into our dealing platform for LIVE, bookable exchange rate quotes.

Global Overview

EUR/USD has moved to reflect renewed USD strength and continuing EUR weakness and is currently trading around 1.0670. In the last 24 hours, we’ve seen a cash call in Greece. In layman’s terms; Greece is desperately running out of cash, so all regional cities and state bodies have been ordered to place their cash reserves in the country’s central bank.

Athens is no closer to reaching an agreement with its Eurozone partners and the International Monetary Fund over economic reforms required to access remaining bailout funds. There is a suggestions that Greece could potentially miss a payment to the IM with little short-term consequence. However, there is one certainty; if Greece defaults on any of it Government debts (bonds, rather than loans) then they could be forced out of the Eurozone.

Investors are looking ahead to the ZEW report on German economic sentiment later in the day after last month’s reading showed an improvement.

Elsewhere, the Australian dollar declined against its U.S. counterpart on Tuesday, after the minutes of the Reserve Bank of Australia suggested a possible rate cut in the near future and as the greenback remained broadly supported. AUDUSD hit 0.7683 during late Asian trade, the pair’s lowest since April 16; the pair subsequently consolidated at 0.7695, sliding 0.38%.