GBP/INR shows the biggest daily gain since mid-January 2017, as the pound thrives on the news that the Conservative Party won the UK election by a margin, defying all expectations.
Currently, the pair is trading at 95.281, up 2.59% as of 5:37 AM UTC. The price just hit the highest level since November last year. On the weekly chart, the pair has rallied since August on the Indian economic slowdown and Brexit optimism, recovering all losses caused by a bearish trend that started at the beginning of the year. The year-to-date low was touched on July 2019 at 83.329, with the price surging over 14.4% since then.
Yesterday, at one point, GBP/INR tumbled 1% to 92.344 as investors feared that UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party wouldn’t be able to secure a comfortable majority. However, the price surged after it was clear that the Tories won a major victory.
It means that Johnson will have all the conditions to “get Brexit done” in less than two months, as agreed with the European leaders.
An exit poll prepared by BBC in collaboration with Sky and ITV showed that the Tories secured 368 seats, while the opposition Labour Party got only 191 seats. As per the poll results, this would be the biggest win for the Conservatives since 1987. For Labours, this would be the biggest loss since 1935.
According to the official results, with two-thirds of the votes being processed at the moment, Johnson’s party came in at 44% or 361 seats, while the Labours are on 32% or 203 seats.
Johnson said earlier today:
“At this stage it does look as though this one-nation Conservative government has been given a powerful new mandate, to get Brexit done and not just to get Brexit done but to unite this country and to take it forward.”
Without the election impact, the rupee would have probably managed to stay strong against the pound. Yesterday, the Indian government said that retail inflation (CPI) surged to 5.5% last month to the highest level in 3 years, beating analysts’ expectations. Also, India’s industrial production (IIP) for October 2019 fell only 3.8 in October, against the expected decline of 5%.