Pound sinks below $1.34 against the dollar as Yellen cranks up the volume on the Fed's hawkish rhetoric.

Sterling is under pressure from the dollar this morning after the US Federal Reserve cranked up the volume on the central bank's hawkish rhetoric, warning that it should be wary of moving too gradually on monetary policy and that it would be "imprudent" to wait for inflation to pick-up to 2pc before tightening.

This morning, the pound has sunk 0.5pc back below $1.34 against the greenback, its lowest level in 12 days.

Emmanuel Macro laying out his vision for Europe couldn't reverse the downward momentum of the euro on forex markets amid the backdrop of political uncertainty in Germany and the heavy-handedness of the Mariano Rajoy government in Catalonia but sterling has given up some of its recent gains against the euro, dipping 0.2pc to €1.1383.

Stock mkts remain in consolidation mode. Asia mixed ahead of US tax plan. Dollar up after Yellen boosted expectations for rate rise in Dec. pic.twitter.com/O74ouH0BlB

— Holger Zschaepitz (@Schuldensuehner) September 27, 2017

The FTSE 100 has opened brightly, erasing yesterday's losses with publisher Pearson jumping nearly 4pc to the top of the leaderboard on a broker upgrade and Randgold Resources retreating most as gold prices dip.

A lack of top tier data in the UK and eurozone today means traders will be waiting until mid-morning for some economics figures to digest. Even then it comes in the slightly understated form of CBI retail sales data with durable goods and home sales data due from the US this afternoon.

Interim results: Defenx, Summit Germany, Xeros Technology Group, RedT Energy, Circassia Pharmaceuticals, Strix Group, Crawshaw Group, Immupharma, Destiny Pharma, Eden Research, Patagonia Gold, Havelock Europa

Full-year results: Hotel Chocolat Group, Avingtrans

Trading statement: Grainger

AGM: Joules Group, Gateley, Fulcrum Utility Services, Entertainment One Group, Aortech International, PZ Cussons, Octagonal. Duke Royalty

Economics: Durable Goods Orders m/m (US) Pending Home Sales m/m (US), Private Loans y/y (EU), M3 Money Supply y/y (EU)

By Tom Rees.

Culled from Yahoo News.