GBP static despite minor improvement in RICS survey

The Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors publish an house price balance every month. It measures the percentage of their members who see UK house prices rising compared to those who see them falling. When that was released this morning it delivered a minus 63% reading. This data set has been in negative territory for the last 12 months and, although this was slightly better than last month’s minus 67%, we clearly have a long way to go before the UK housing market is back into positive territory. Other than this, we have a speech from Huw Pill, the Bank of England’s chief economist today and that is it for the pound. Sterling is pretty static, lacking any particular positive or negative data. Tomorrow will be a different matter though with UK economic growth data being published at 7am GMT. Brace yourself for slightly weaker growth although recent data has been mixed, so there is scope for an upset on this data. As at this morning, the pound buys USD 1.2270, EUR 1.1460, AUD 1.9172, NZD 2.0730 and CAD 1.6940.