LONDON (Reuters) - Brexit will be foremost in investors’ minds in the coming week, though a smattering of data will offer further indications as to how much global economic growth, bogged down by politics and trade wars, is slowing.
British Prime Minister Theresa May is fighting for her political life after the draft divorce deal she agreed with the European Union provoked an exodus of senior ministers and open mutiny in her ruling Conservative party.
With little over four months to go until Britain is due to leave the EU, pitching the world’s fifth largest economy into the unknown, it is still unclear just how - and on what terms - it will do so.
On Thursday, sterling GBP= EURGBP= tumbled 2 percent against the dollar and euro, its biggest daily drop against the common currency in over two years, as the series of resignations threatened to tear May's government apart. By lunchtime on Friday it had recovered a small part of those losses.
May has sought to negotiate a deal that ensures the United Kingdom leaves the bloc as smoothly as possible, but she faces opposition to her proposals from across the domestic political spectrum.
Fears May’s hard-fought deal could collapse has sent British markets into gyrations not seen since the June 2016 referendum on EU membership, but on Thursday she promised to fight for it.
“Should the deal be passed, then after a likely further month of volatility it should bring about the expectation among households and businesses that the cliff-edge of a no-deal Brexit will be averted,” said George Buckley at Nomura.
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So while focus will remain on what progress - if any - May can make in uniting Britain behind her Brexit
