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Pound strengthened.

UK gilt yields fell, and the pound strengthened this morning after Boris Johnson announced that he would not enter the contest to become the next prime minister.

This, as well as fears that the contest could delay the October 31 fiscal statement, led to a sell-off in gilts on Friday. Consequently, this morning buyers returned to the market expecting that the former chancellor Rishi Sunak would become prime minister, lifting yields across short, medium and long-date gilts. These long-dated gilts were at the centre of the turmoil following the mini-budget that prompted the Bank of England to intervene to steady the market. As a result, the pound, which fell as low as $1.03 against the dollar in the days after the mini-budget, strengthened this morning to $1.1330, up 0.26 per cent.

The index slid 24 points, or 0.3 per cent, to 6945.72. The more UK-focused FTSE 250 rose 62 points, or 0.4 per cent, to 17,268.70.

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  1. Aaliyah30 October 2022 at 12:21

    Rishi Sunak is a wealthy man who doesn't know what it means to be poor and doesn't understand how most UK citizens are living or thinking. This is not a good match and I don't see him doing a good job.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Logan3 November 2022 at 08:48

    It's good that Boris Johnson is out of the picture as that wouldn't have been a good idea at all. Will Sunak be better than Truss? Who knows? He might last longer than her since that's not very hard to do but whether he has what it takes to handle these hard times remains a mystery.

    ReplyDelete

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