Afternoon Market Update – 20/02/2017 – by Jazz Singh

With the US celebrating President’s Day we expect a particularly quiet afternoon session today. We’ve had some strong moves this morning however, with pound sterling trading higher against its G10 peers. Cable’s intraday high is just above the $1.2480 level, a gain of some 70 pips for the session. The South African rand continues to trickle lower, down 0.6 percent, as Finance Minister Gordhan’s position comes under question. Despite a slump in Unilever stock of near 7 percent after Kraft Heinz removed their takeover offer, European bourses are softly bid this morning; the DAX has briefly tested the ground above 11850 while the Stoxx Europe 600 has risen 0.2 percent. The big winner in the commodity complex is copper, rising nearly 1 percent as a dispute over mining licenses in Indonesia continues. Crude oil is also pointing higher after trading in a narrow range last week. Looking ahead there is the European consumer confidence reading at 15:00 GMT as the only data point of note.