Investors gave a cursory glance at the week's economic data and decided they didn't particularly care. They seldom do care at this time of year unless the figures are seriously adrift from analysts' forecasts. Although not every major financial centre is officially closed for a two-day Christmas break, with 26 December falling on a Friday there cannot have been many market participants straining at the leash to get into the office at the end of last week.
Those who did make the effort were obviously unmoved by Friday's long list of Japanese ecostats, most of which were distorted by April's sales tax increase. The 2.4 per cent headline rate of inflation looked alright but it masked a slowdown in the core rate, which ignores the impact of the higher sales tax, from 0.9 per cent to 0.7 per cent. The only statistic that really caught investors' attention was the upgrade to US gross domestic product. It expanded by 1.3 per cent in the third quarter instead of the 1.1 per cent previously reported.
The week's two top-performing currencies, the NZ and US dollars, earned their position because their interest rates could be the first to move higher in the New Year. At the bottom of the table the northern Scandinavian crowns were held down for the opposite reason.
On average, sterling was unchanged on the week, closely accompanied by euro, the yen and the Swiss franc. But the pound has had a good year, strengthening by an average of 5.8 per cent since the beginning of January. Its only loss is the -5.5 per cent by which it has fallen behind the US dollar. Its biggest gains were of 15 per cent against the Swedish krona and 16 per cent against the Norwegian krone. The great survivor of 2014 was the euro, which fell by only -7 per cent against sterling. It might not be so lucky in 2015.
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