BoE prepares for rate rises | “Algorithmic trading” makes it to the Oxford Dictionaries

The pound Sterling has gone through a number of support levels in its fall since the middle of 2014, despite many good indicators for the strength of the UK economy. The 200 month Exponential Moving Average (EMA) provided something of the barrier to the collapsing rate, before turning into resistance, which is characteristic of support and resistance levels (see chart above), but that, too, is now a thing of the past.

Meanwhile, the Bank of England continues to carry out its prep work for the introduction of core interest rate rises. Bloomberg reports that the central bank has commissioned a survey to determine the readiness of UK households for such a rise, with particular attention paid to household debt levels. It concluded they can, indeed, weather gradual rate increases.

According to Bloomberg:

‘“These results do not imply that increases in interest rates from their current historically low level would have unusually large effects on household spending,” the BOE said in its Quarterly Bulletin published today. “The outlook for household income is a key factor that will determine the vulnerability of households to a rise in interest rates.”’

Probably the only thing holding back such rate rises now is a worry about the economic wellbeing of the Eurozone, which accounts for a large proportion of the UK’s international trade. And, on this basis, falls in the Euro will always resonate with Sterling.

“Algorithmic trading” makes it to the Oxford Dictionaries

A recently released list of new terms to be added to the Oxford dictionaries includes the phrase “Agorithmic trading”. That it has taken until now for this to happen must be an indication of the relative uniqueness of this manner of online trading, even now, but is a welcome recognition for it.

Algorithmic trading is not confined to Forex, of course, and has also been in use for equities and indexes for some time. High Frequency Trading (HFT), or the use of algorithms to take advantage of nothing else other than the speed of computers to place the HFT trader between the buyer and seller of an instrument, is a sub-set of algorithmic trading, but is not what OmiCronFX does. Our activities are perfectly described in the Oxford Dictionary entry above.