Chris Redfern Moneycorp

Moneycorp analyst Chris Redfern

A week ago sterling was in the wars after a series of opinion polls had shown Scottish separatists gaining the upper hand ahead of Thursday (18 September)'s independence referendum.

Since then the polls have been leaning in the other direction, the latest one putting the unionists ahead by 54 votes to 46.

Although the fat lady is not scheduled to sing until early Friday morning, investors are no longer so nervous about a break-up of the United Kingdom.

That being the case, they have reversed some of the earlier selling, making the pound last week's top performer.

Investors have also changed their mind about the Australian dollar.

As sterling moved to the top of the ladder the Aussie fell to the bottom. Having for so long ignored negative fundamentals such as slowing growth in China and the falling price of iron ore, investors came to the conclusion last week that they could ignore them no longer.

Figures released over the weekend, which showed China's industrial production growing by 'only' 6.9 per cent in the year to August, cemented their doubts. A 6.9 per cent increase in industrial production would look brilliant in any western country but for China it was the worst performance since the height of the financial crisis in early 2009.

It is unlikely that sterling will be able to lead the field for a second week; there is too much that can go wrong.

On the agenda there are UK data for inflation, house prices, unemployment, wages, retail sales and factory orders as well as the minutes of September's Monetary Policy Committee meeting and the Scottish independence referendum.

Sterling will not monopolise investors' attention though - tomorrow (17 September) brings the all-important Euroland inflation reading, and that same evening the head of the Federal Reserve will offer her latest guidance on the future for US Interest rates.