FX round-up: EU Commission chief comes under pressure to step down

For the most part currency markets traded calmly ahead of the week´s key risk events, Wednesday´s Inflation Report from the Bank of England and a spate of economic data out Stateside on Friday.

It is against the above backdrop that dollar/yen edged higher by 0.12% to end the day at 114.75.

Euro/dollar continued to show weakness, but even so only slipped 0.20% to 1.2428.

To take note of, the new chief of the European Comission, Jean Claude Juncker, came under renewed pressure from several media outlets over the weekend to step down. Leaked documents revealed the role he played in helping hundreds of Europe´s largest corporations to cut their tax bills by domiciling activities in his country, Luxembourg.

Cable was 0.15% lower, and at 1.5851 by the end of trading.

The Confederation of British Industry´s (CBI) new forecasts for Britain´s gross domestic product, in 2016, call for growth of 2.5%, the same as in 2015. The estimate for the rate of expansion next year was lowered from the 2.7% originally calculated.

The business lobby said strong business investment and a recovery in exports would boost growth, but warned of the impact which weakness in the Eurozone might have.

Lastly, Lloyd´s Bank consumer confidence index for October revealed that a net 0% of consumers thought employment prospects were better than a year ago, down from September's reading of +10.