The Race Is On

[otters]

To the bottom.

Another cut in rates is forecast.

https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/hsbc-pound-heading-parity-euro-172800021.html

[TheCountOfNowhere]

It's criminal IMHO.

Sonmething has got to give very very soon. This is the sign of utter and total desperation.

[rantnrave]

Sonmething has got to give very very soon.

Positive interest rates?

[FrankCostanza]

A falling pound, making British exports cheaper, would be one way to attract that foreign money, and reduce the C/A deficit. Bloom writes, emphasis in the original:

From article.

UK had it's worst ever goods trade deficit last month.

12.4B GBP

Thats after a 15% drop in the pound.

When is this so called export revival supposed to happen?

[billybong]

One imagines that in recent months there was much feverish activity behind the scenes trying to hold it all together until the referendum date and the decision was made - emphasis on decision rather than outcome.

Brexit or Bremain the outcome for interest rates was going to be the same whatever it turns out to be. Likely the longer Britain remains in the eu the worse it will turn out to be.

Edited August 9, 2016 by billybong

[Crumbless]

From article.

UK had it's worst ever goods trade deficit last month.

12.4B GBP

Thats after a 15% drop in the pound.

When is this so called export revival supposed to happen?

Govt policy is to trash the pound and then all of a sudden we'll have loads of stuff the world wants to buy.

Unfortunately it doesn't quite work like that.

[rantnrave]

Alternatively, put up IRs and people can no longer afford to borrow money to buy tat from abroad.

[zugzwang]

Markets now betting that the Bank won't raise interest rates for another 66 months i.e. 2022.

[Crumbless]

Alternatively, put up IRs and people can no longer afford to borrow money to buy tat from abroad.

Put up interest rates so house prices crash then the young people who create companies that make stuff to export, will have time and money to create such companies.

Nah fck it, lets just get banks lending us all ever increasing sums, with the state throwing 20-40% in so we can buy property from each other at ever increasing prices, far fckn easier and this way any dumb fck can be an "entrepreneur".

Edited August 9, 2016 by Crumbless

[SirGaz]

Alternatively, put up IRs and people can no longer afford to borrow money to buy tat from abroad.

I'm sure I have vague memories of the news at ten reporting that on an almost weekly basis in the 80's.

If the trade deficit was particularly bad they would move interest rates up a bit to discourage further spending on tat.

[Confusion of VIs]

From article.

UK had it's worst ever goods trade deficit last month.

12.4B GBP

Thats after a 15% drop in the pound.

When is this so called export revival supposed to happen?

To be fair you would expect the gap to widen initially, in month 1 the only thing that changed is the invoices for the cost of imports already delivered/ordered have risen by +10%.

In future months and years we will see if consumers changing behaviour is enough to offset this, personally I doubt I but this is what many are hoping for.

[Confusion of VIs]

HSBC has just forecast pound reaching parity with the Euro by the end of 2017.

[dgul]

To be fair you would expect the gap to widen initially, in month 1 the only thing that changed is the invoices for the cost of imports already delivered/ordered have risen by +10%.

In future months and years we will see if consumers changing behaviour is enough to offset this, personally I doubt I but this is what many are hoping for.

And also the reverse - I did some quick capex for my business in the weeks following the Brexit vote because the pound had dropped but importer prices in £ hadn't been raised. It was a purchase I was going to make later in the year anyway, and prices are now up about 10%.

So the Brexit decision is likely to have resulted in an extraordinary trade defecit.

[knock out johnny]

HSBC has just forecast pound reaching parity with the Euro by the end of 2017.

What's HSBC's track record with these predictions?

[Confusion of VIs]

What's HSBC's track record with these predictions?

Not bad, where I used to work they assigned a credibility rating to the various forecasters, re FX HSBC's was quite high.

[mattyboy1973]

And also the reverse - I did some quick capex for my business in the weeks following the Brexit vote because the pound had dropped but importer prices in £ hadn't been raised. It was a purchase I was going to make later in the year anyway, and prices are now up about 10%.

So the Brexit decision is likely to have resulted in an extraordinary trade defecit.

Funnily enough I did something similar on a smaller scale. I bought a rather expensive piece of brewing equipment imported from the US, as the supplier had just landed a batch at the old price. Something I'd been thinking about for a while, but the £ devaluation coupled with availability of stock at the older price pushed me into the decision.