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GERMANY: Official Interim Election Results Tilt Towards Missing BSW & FDP

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GBP: Negative Markets Bias May Provide Asymmetric Risks Around UK Data Ahead

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GBP/USD's strong rally off yesterday's lows means the pair has now retraced over 50% of the post-BoE decision losses, putting the price within 100 pips of last week's highs.

  • This signals that markets are taking Mann's views at face value this week - and that her vote for 50bps last week isn't the beginning of series of votes for aggressive easing given her preference for restrictive policy (we gauge bank rate as being ~100bps above her top estimate of neutral, therefore leaving little room for sizeable cuts).
  • More broadly, the negative bias toward GBP/USD persists. Our CFTC positioning dashboard has GBP's 52w Z-score at -1.52, signalling positioning momentum is the second most-negative in G10 after NZD. This is reflected in the bias toward downside protection in GBP/USD this year: the shift lower for 3m risk reversals in January has largely stuck, mirrored in demand for OTM puts - we've tracked near $3bln cumulative notional traded across 1.22 puts in the past month, again cementing the market's concern over GBP downside risks.
  • It's these factors that may provide asymmetric upside risks to GBP on strong data releases ahead - particularly data covering consumption, a driver of the weak demand that helped trigger Mann's vote for 50bps last week. Prelim Q4 GDP data crosses tomorrow morning.
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GBP/USD's strong rally off yesterday's lows means the pair has now retraced over 50% of the post-BoE decision losses, putting the price within 100 pips of last week's highs.

  • This signals that markets are taking Mann's views at face value this week - and that her vote for 50bps last week isn't the beginning of series of votes for aggressive easing given her preference for restrictive policy (we gauge bank rate as being ~100bps above her top estimate of neutral, therefore leaving little room for sizeable cuts).
  • More broadly, the negative bias toward GBP/USD persists. Our CFTC positioning dashboard has GBP's 52w Z-score at -1.52, signalling positioning momentum is the second most-negative in G10 after NZD. This is reflected in the bias toward downside protection in GBP/USD this year: the shift lower for 3m risk reversals in January has largely stuck, mirrored in demand for OTM puts - we've tracked near $3bln cumulative notional traded across 1.22 puts in the past month, again cementing the market's concern over GBP downside risks.
  • It's these factors that may provide asymmetric upside risks to GBP on strong data releases ahead - particularly data covering consumption, a driver of the weak demand that helped trigger Mann's vote for 50bps last week. Prelim Q4 GDP data crosses tomorrow morning.