By Alex Ellis

Yesterday saw Alastair Darling address the House of Commons with his pre-budget report, during the initial stages of the report the pound grew slightly stronger on the back of the news there would be no windfall tax on bank profits. However as the address continued the pound lost strength as a rise in National Insurance, Value Added Tax and a tax on bank bonuses were announced. Darling also admitted that his growth predictions for the U.K. economy in 2009 had been drastically wrong, this was seen as a negative for the pound as in reality he is in the best position to predict such figures.

In other currency news the New Zealand interest decision was announced yesterday at 20:00 (GMT), the decision was to keep the interest levels on hold at 2.5%, this should mean that NZD will gain strength. In the early hours of this morning Australia announced that unemployment levels had decreased to 5.7% this was seen as a positive for the AUD as it shows signs of a healthy economy.

During the course of today there will a number of data release that will affect the currency market; the most notable of which will be released at 12:00 (GMT), the Bank of England will announce their interest rate decision, the prediction for this is that the BOE will keep interest rates on hold at 0.5%. However some analysts believe that a further £20billion will be pumped into the economy, this will be seen as a massive negative for the pound, and could make Sterling Exchange Rates extremely volatile.

Exchange rates have been especially volatile in recent times and towards the end of the year they tend to continue this trend, this will make sending money overseas especially expensive, and in order to ensure you buy currency at the best possible time keep in contact with an experienced currency broker.