[DanRath]

There are increasing signs of JPY strength suggesting carry crosses coming under selling pressure, which will undermine GBPUSD. UK house prices rose 0.1% m/m and were down 10.9% y/y in England and Wales in July according to FT/Acadametrics. This compares to 0.1% m/m and -12.3% y/y in June (revised from -0.3% m/m and - 13.1% y/y) and the FT index is hence showing the same bottoming of annual rates that has been observed in other survey data (such as Nationwide and Halifax). House prices in London rose 0.5% on the month in June (the latest available figure) and declined 12.0% y/y compared to a 13.1% drop in May and a 0.8% m/m increase, showing that the capital's housing market is now stabilising as well. Meanwhile, mortgage repossession orders in England and Wales fell by 31% y/y to 19.1k SA in Q2, according to government data, and down 1% q/q. The U.K. Ministry of Justice said data were distorted by government measures to protect home owners from repossessions, with 46% of orders made being suspended, meaning that the total number of actual home repossessions were lower. Indeed, today's earlier data from CML, had U.K. home repossessions of 11.4k in Q2, versus 12.7k in Q1.