Commodities retreated as it’s unlikely that the coalition of the willing would take military action against Syria soon. Both Britain and France declared that they would rather wait for the UN inspection report before any decision. The front-month contract for WTI crude oil weakened further after slipping to -1.18% yesterday.
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Commodities Declined as Britain and France Opposed to Any Imminent Military Actions Against Syria
Weakness in US markets carried forward to the Asian session after the World Bank revised lower the global economic forecasts. Disappointments in Japanese data exacerbated the decline. The RBNZ’s statement after the monetary meeting turned out to be more dovish than expected. Policymakers left the OCR unchanged and signaled it will stay where it is until 3Q14.
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Asian Markets Plummeted as World Bank Revised Lower Global Economic Outlook
Financial markets strengthened on the encouraging US data released last Friday. Sentiment was also buoyed by weakness of Japanese yen. In Asian session, the MSCI Asia Pacific Index gained around +0.7%. On the commodity sector, the front-month crude oil prices remained firm after the rebound since the middle of last week while the Brent crude contract added +0.7% during the week.
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Financial Markets Soar on Strong US Data, Yen’s Weakness
UK sterling’s exchange rate jumped higher against the dollar and the euro on Thursday following statistics from the ONS that reported the UK economy grew 0.3 percent in the first quarter of 2013 and sterling hit its highest level since February against the dollar to $1.548.
Latest Uk Sterling Exchange Rates
As of 07:30 GMT this morning, one pound sterling bought 1.18680 euro (year low is 1.14340) and against the US dollar GBP bought $1.54490 (year low is $1.49000). A strong British pound makes commodities including crude oil less expensive as they are priced in US dollars.
Missing The Triple Dip
The better than expected growth of 0.3 percent in the UK for the first quarter was cheered by economists defying fears that the British economy would fall into another recession.
“The UK economy managed to escape a triple dip recession much to the surprise to some of the bears out there, posting a better than expected reading of 0.3 percent expansion in the first quarter of the year,” said Ishaq Siddiqi, market strategist at ETX Capital.
Howard Archer of IHS Global Insight said the GDP result was very welcome, if rare, good news on the UK economy. “The dominant services sector was the UK economy’s saviour in the first quarter with surprisingly decent growth of 0.6 percent quarter on quarter,” he said.
The GDP figures come after a 0.3 percent contraction in Q4 2012, which many had feared would lead to another technical recession.
The ONS said the UK’s services sector provided the biggest boost to GDP, growing by 0.6 percent and providing 0.47 percentage points of the overall growth in the economy.
The British economy also received a boost from production; output in the sector rose by 0.2 percent, largely due to a boost from mining & quarrying, which increased by 3.2 percent following a weak Q4 2012 when extended maintenance in the North Sea reduced output.
However, the ONS cautioned that only around 44 percent of the data that will make up the final Q1 number had been collated so far, in keeping with its practice for issuing first estimates. For the record, a first or preliminary ONS estimate is produced in the first month after a quarter, then a second in month two, and a further revision in the Quarterly National Accounts.
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UK sterling rate jumps higher as ONS says Britain escaped triple dip