Published: 30 Apr at 11 AM Tags: Pound Sterling, Euro Exchange Rate, Dollar Exchange Rate, Forex, Euro Crisis, UK, Economy,
The pound enjoyed a strong start to the trading week, boosted by comments from Bank of England policymaker Ian McCafferty who said yesterday that he sees grounds for hope that the UK economy will pick up following a batch of data pointing to growth. McCafferty said in a newspaper interview that he was "cautiously optimistic" about the country’s future with world trade picking up and UK exports improving.
McCafferty said he believed the economy has been healthier than headline figures would suggest.
McCafferty also confirmed that he is not in favour of the resumption of the Bank of England’s quantitative easing asset purchase programme but is in favour of the Bank keeping UK interest rates at very low levels to help the economic recovery.
The US dollar was under pressure following weak US growth data which reduced expectations that the Federal Reserve could wind down its own quantitative easing programme anytime soon.
The Federal Reserve, the US central bank starts its two-day meeting today.
The mere possibility that the Fed may introduce further stimulus measures was sufficient to push US equities higher with the Standard & Poor's (S&P) 500 index reaching its highest level since 11 April.
The euro received support yesterday following the news over the weekend of the appointment of a new government in Italy following inconclusive elections in February. The new Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta and his new cabinet were sworn in on Sunday. The new government managed to meet its first target as yesterday’s sovereign debt sale achieved a total of €6 billion in long term debt while paying the lowest financing costs since October 2010.
Letta is also reported to have cancelled up to €6 billion of planned tax rises after saying that Europe had to change its focus on austerity.
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