The Pound is retreating a little bit. Overview for 10.01.2019

GBPUSD is correcting on Thursday; investors are waiting for news. 

The British Pound is falling a bit against the USD o Thursday afternoon. The current quote for the instrument is 1.2755. 

Yesterday, market players were set in turmoil by the news that British companies, both manufacturing and financial, got their and their clients’ money worth a total of 1 trillion USD out of the country. According to EY, this is the way British companies are getting prepared for the Brexit: they funnel assets out of the country in order to avoid any possible risks. 

EY analyzed more than 220 British companies that are available to the public. The starting point was June 2016, when the Brexit referendum took place. There weren’t any particular expectations about this: the company just watched and counted. 

At the same time, the above-mentioned number may be considered as neutral. Even if British enterprises got about 800B Pounds expressed in USD out of the United Kingdom, there are at least 7 trillion Pounds (this is, once again, according to EY) left in the country. Considering that the number of companies is not full, there might be even more money still in the UK. In this light, the overall picture doesn’t look too scary. 

Today’s slight decline is also caused by the BRC Retail Sales Monitor, which lost 0.7% y/y in December after decreasing by 0.5% y/y in the previous month.