Market Snapshot – Markets Choppy Over Political Developments

The European stock markets have been weak during the course of trading today so far and in this, they have followed on from where they left off yesterday. The FTSE seems to be the only one that has bucked the trend so far and this has been brought about by a weakness in the pound. There is not much data scheduled to be released from any of the major countries and so the political drama is likely to dominate the headlines for today and tomorrow as well. Germany, UK and US have a lot of domestic political issues to deal with and it is likely that these determine the flow of the markets over the next few days. We also have a slew of data later in the week from the US which is likely to keep the dollar busy.

The pound seems to be one of the most volatile currencies at this point of time as the strength in the currency has been giving way to the weakness. Till yesterday, the pound was buoyed by reports of a deal being reached in the Brexit talks but since the beginning of the week, we have had news that DUP party has blocked the deal suggested by May and this has led to a blockade of the deal and a setback for May. The focus is on what she is going to do over the next few days to salvage a deal and till that time, we can safely expect the pound to continue to trade in a weak manner.