Third consecutive day of rising steak for sterling

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Sterling snapped a Third consecutive day of rising steak as concerns rose that Britain may be headed for a protracted Brexit delay.

The upper house of Britain’s parliament started debating legislation to force Prime Minister Theresa May to seek a Brexit delay. The delay is to prevent a potentially disorderly departure on April 12 without a deal, after the lower house approved the bill by a single vote.

May also began talks with opposition lawmakers to forge a cross-party consensus to break the Brexit deadlock. However, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said she had not moved far enough in a first round of crisis talks.

While political developments this week indicated lawmakers are increasingly reluctant to go for a hard Brexit, the lack of clarity on an alternative plan has weighed on the pound.

The pound fell 0.2% to the day’s low at $1.3134. Against the euro, it weakened 0.1% to 85.48.

Hopes of a softer British exit from the European Union have weakened the appeal of defensive assets.

Brexit is so confusing it’s even confounding the robots.

Machine-driven trading systems in the $5.1 trillion-a-day global currency market are struggling to cope with the blizzard of Brexit headlines. The problem for the computers is that Brexit is producing too many headlines for them to process. Reuters, for instance, has published up to 400 news headlines on Brexit per day in recent weeks, up from around 15 on British politics before it became an issue.

Forex – Third consecutive day of rising steak for sterling

The euro fell to a session low on Thursday after a report that Italy will slash its growth forecasts prompted fears about a broader economic slump. Political wrangling over the finances of heavily indebted Italy has seen the euro weaken versus the dollar. The euro was also pressured on Thursday by more signs of weakness in the German economy.

The common currency has remained in a range of $1.12-$1.16. It trading at $1.122, flat on the day. It has fallen in six of the previous eight sessions. Investors were focused on minutes from the ECB’s March meeting.

The safe-haven yen touched a two-week low of 111.575 yen against the dollar late on Wednesday.

Positive risk sentiment this week has helped boost the commodity-linked Australian and New Zealand dollars.

Sources: Reuters, Investing, CNN money

PLEASE NOTE The information above is not investment advice.