Currency news / July 17, 2025

Trump at it again

3 min read Thanim Islam

Thanim IslamJuly 17, 2025

Market snapshot:

Dollar volatility on Powell fired/not fired speculations
GBP holding on to key support level

Yesterday's currency recap

A fair bit of USD volatility in the afternoon, with Trump, at one point, signalling he was on his way to firing Fed Chair Powell, only to then go and refute this claim within the hour. USD lost almost 1% initially before the losses pared by the end of the day. Another fine example of the TACO (Trump always chickens out) trade! GBP moves were subdued following that higher CPI number in the morning.

Earlier in the day, PPI numbers from the US surprisingly came in lower than expected; however, market impact was minimal.

Today's GBP rates

Currency pair	Daily move*	Indicative rate**
GBPAUD	0.17%	2.0581
GBPCAD	0.11%	1.8386
GBPCHF	0.20%	1.0752
GBPDKK	0.00%	8.6107
GBPEUR	0.00%	1.1539
GBPJPY	-0.20%	198.798
GBPNOK	0.28%	13.7708
GBPNZD	0.40%	2.26
GBPSEK	0.23%	13.0474
GBPUSD	0.32%	1.3425

*Daily move - against G10 rates at 7:00 am, 17.07.25
** Indicative rates - interbank rates at 7:00 am, 17.07.25

Key data points

Currency	Event	Period	Consensus	Previous
USD	Retail Sales MoM	Jun	0.10%	-0.90%
USD	Retail Sales YoY	Jun	0.30%	0.40%
USD	Initial Jobless Claims	Jul 12	233000	277000

What we think

UK job numbers showed a slowdown in May's pay growth, increased unemployment rate and payrolls that showed 41,000 job losses. Collectively, this is pointing to a strong possibility of a rate cut being introduced as early as August. However, GBP, prompted by key support levels versus USD and EUR is relatively unmoved on the jobs numbers.

Following hawkish comments from Fed Williams and Bosti, USD gained overnight. All eyes are now on today’s US retail sales and jobless claims figures, which will be pivotal in determining whether the dollar’s gains for this month will continue.

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