HSBC - What Next For GBP/USD?: The One Chart That Says It All
Given the close correlation between movements in GBP/USD and shifts in relative interest rate expectations, the simplest assumption would be that the better UK growth is relative to the US, the higher GBP/USD would be, and vice versa. Right?
Not really, "it is not that straight-forward", says HSBC.
In the chart below, HSBC illustrates what they believe would be the likely reaction to developing economic news in the UK and US. HSBC examines various combinations of “good”, “bad”, “terrible” and “excellent” data releases. So they have the cyclical considerations, which are shown in our diagram with each quadrant given a lower case a,b,c,d.
Here are HSBC's findings:
a) Good US data, Bad UK data – GBP negative
b) Good US data, Good UK data – GBP negative
c) Bad US data, Good UK data – Neutral
d) Bad US data, Bad UK data – GBP positive .
"So in our inner cyclical quadrant of a, b, c, d we have GBP doing well in one out of the four cases. In other words even in a cyclical environment the odds seem stacked against GBP," HSBC finds outs.
Then HSBC moves to the more extreme outcomes where growth is not simply bad or good, but terrible or excellent: Here are those findings as well:
A) Excellent US data, Terrible UK data – GBP negative
B) Excellent US data, Excellent UK data – GBP positive
C) Terrible US data, Excellent UK data – GBP negative
D) Terrible US data, Terrible UK data – GBP negative
"In fact, our interpretation of different possible outcomes is that most of them point to downside risks for GBP-USD, with only a couple of instances arguing for GBP-USD gains...GBP-USD is likely to fall further," HSBC concludes.