| Time | Country | Event | Period | Previous value | Forecast | Actual |
|---|
| 07:00 | United Kingdom | Retail Sales (MoM) | February | 3.6% | -0.3% | 0.0% |
| 07:00 | United Kingdom | Retail Sales (YoY) | February | 0.5% | -0.7% | -0.4% |
| 09:00 | Germany | IFO - Current Assessment | March | 86.9 | 86.8 | 88.1 |
| 09:00 | Germany | IFO - Expectations | March | 84.1 | 84.6 | 87.5 |
| 09:00 | Germany | IFO - Business Climate | March | 85.5 | 86 | 87.8 |
GBP continued to depreciate against other major currencies in the European session on Friday as investors ignored stronger-than-expected UK February retail sales data, considering them not enough to avert the Bank of England’s (BoE) from policy easing in the coming months.
The Office for National Statistics reported earlier this morning that British retail sales were unchanged MoM in February, following an upwardly revised 3.6% MoM surge (from +3.4% MoM) in January. Economists had predicted a 0.3% MoM drop.
Despite better-than-anticipated retail sales figures, the pound continued to see pressure amid bets on monetary easing in the UK in the coming months, which increased after yesterday’s announcement of the BoE’s policy update and the comments of its governor Bailey.
The minutes from the BoE’s March 20 meeting revealed that two of the British central bank’s most hawkish policymakers - Jonathan Haskel and Catherine Mann – withdrew their calls for interest rate hikes. Meanwhile, the BoE’s governor Andrew Bailey said that rate cuts will be on the table at every policy meeting going forward. He also pointed to further encouraging signs that inflation in the UK is coming down but stressed the need to see consistent progress towards hitting the inflation target before the rate cut.