Main currency pairs steady

The euro and sterling are both steady against the dollar this morning trading at around $1.0850 and $1.2350 respectively, which in turn leaves the single currency-pound exchange rate still hovering just below 88p

In government bond markets, German 10-year yields have nudged up to around 2.10% (from 2% or so earlier in the week), while equivalent UK and US yields are marginally higher as well at around  3.30% and 3.40% respectively

The minutes of the ECB’s December meeting revealed that “a large number of members initially expressed a preference for increasing the key interest rates by 75 basis points” but settled for 50 basis points on the understanding that the central bank “would continue raising rates significantly” at future meetings

Fed member Williams says it is going “to require some further tightening of monetary policy to slow growth in the (US) economy to get” inflation to 2%

The volume of retail sales in the UK declined for a second month running in December, falling by 1% from November and leaving them down almost 6% on December 2021

Economic data due later today include existing home sales in the US