The nation’s terror threat level was raised to ‘critical’ after Friday's attack. However, this has since been reduced back down to ‘severe’ with investigations still underway. In case you’ve just come back from holidays, or been stuck on a deserted island for a week, it’s worth perhaps recapping the major events of last week which saw GBPUSD set a new year high, reaching levels not seen since the EU Referendum.

Last week started off quietly, however a raft of Sterling positive data releases saw the Pound rally. These included MPS voting in favour of the Great Repeal Bill, UK CPI inflation ticking up to 2.9% in August from 2.6% the month previously and Thursday’s MPC minutes where it was said “some withdrawal of monetary stimulus was likely to be appropriate over the coming months”.

Over the weekend, there was a fair bit of commentary and news to be aware of - ECB Chief Economist and Executive Board member Peter Praet said in an interview to a Belgian newspaper, 'substantial stimulus is still needed and that stimulus reduction mustn’t cause excessive shocks.' He also stated that he was more confident that inflation will increase towards its objective of 'below, but close to 2%' thanks to very strong economic growth but reiterated that in the event of too high inflation, the ECB will react 'just as ruthlessly' as it is currently to bring it back down.

Closer to home, the Centre for Economics and Business Research upgraded its outlook for the UK’s economy Monday, citing a pickup in manufacturing and a view that the worst of the consumer-spending squeeze has passed. The group now expects U.K. growth of 1.6 percent this year and 1.4 percent in 2018, an increase from 1.3 percent and 1.2 percent, previously. We also learnt from Rightmove that UK house prices grew at the slowest annual pace in more than five years this month as a slump in London weighed on the market. Asking prices rose 1.1% from a year earlier down from 3.1 percent in August. While the autumn traditionally sees prices pick up after a summer lull, this year had the first month-on-month decline in September in four years as values in London slumped.

In other news, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is weighing holding a snap general election as early as next month, a move that would allow him to seize growing support for his handling of the North Korea crisis. In terms of the day ahead, it’s a quiet start to the week, with Euro area CPI at 10.00 and BOE Governor Carney speaking at 4pm.

Thought of the day

Believe it or not the Queen has been a fan of Arsenal for almost 60 years! The revelation came after Her Majesty met the Arsenal team, and manager Arsene Wenger, at a reception in Buckingham Palace back in February 2007. This revelation will certainly please a few of the guys on the Investec FX Desk. Another discovery about the Queen was revealed by the former president of Fifa, who had compiled a list of top 10 heads of state with the greatest football expertise in his new autobiography, Mission & Passion Fussball. He ranked the Queen Elizabeth II as fifth, beating former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who has owned AC Milan since 1986. This hasn’t been the only surprising revelation out of the UK to come across us recently. The unexpected strength of the Pound has been the other piece. GBPUSD reached levels last in June 2016 and traded through 1.3600. The move was witnessed across the board, looking at GBPEUR, it is now trading 5 cents higher than beginning of September. To make the most of Sterling’s recent strength, call the Investec Dealing team on 0800 055 6339.