And this reminded me there is a budget proposal underway - and segued into the reason we are at 1.176.
According to pound sterling live, (and maybe other sources) the euro has been hit by the France bond and budget crisis -
"European bond markets fragmented this week as French debt collapsed in value, heaping pressure on the euro with analysts warning of further weakness ahead.
The gap between French and German ten-year borrowing costs, the favoured measure of French stress, widened to 141 basis points on Thursday. The French spread is now the widest since 2012, a reading that only arrives in periods of serious political stress."
The article references the France budget -
“The minority government of Sébastien Lecornu is struggling to pass a budget to prevent a rise in the public deficit from 5.4% in 2026 to 6% in 2027,” says Holger Schmieding, Chief Economist at Berenberg.
The 2027 draft finance bill presented this week sets out €43bn of measures to limit the budget deficit expansion, worth 1.4% of GDP, intended to bring the deficit down to 5.0% instead."
It looks slightly like the UK situation, except the UK budget will get passed. PSL is predicting (guesstimating?) that following the UK budget, GBP/EUR will appreciate slowly after the event, assuming a low key budget.
In the meantime, we are enjoying good exchange rates on the back of the fact that France is down the pan on bond markets. And if the 10 year France bond rate is currently 4.92% I do have to ask myself, why am I getting / accepting 2.1% gross on my Livret Bleu? Maybe time to look at an AV?
I think the answer keeps coming back to the fact that I’m still getting 4.55% minimum retail in UK, with bits up to 8%.
Anyway, here’s the PSL article if you are interested - and are we still going (back) to 1.18 - before or after the UK budget?!
https://www.poundsterlinglive.com/eur/23708-euro-predictions-france-strains-at-the-seams
PS Adam, I can feel your pain on the pension ‘abatement’.