GBP/USD Approaches 1.68 as BOE Holds Rates

The pound was about 0.2 percent from its weakest level in eight weeks versus the dollar after Bank of England officials maintained their key interest rate at a record-low 0.5 percent following a two-day meeting.

U.K. 10-year government bond yields dropped to the lowest in almost a year. The central bank’s decision was forecast by all 47 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg News. Officials have been united in voting to leave policy unchanged since Governor Mark Carney’s first Monetary Policy Committee meeting in July 2013. The BOE will update its economic forecasts next week while a separate report will show unemployment fell in the three months through June, according to a separate survey of economists.

“The next big U.K.-related point of interest is going to be the labor market data next week and the Bank of England’s inflation report,” said Daragh Maher, a foreign-exchange strategist at HSBC Holdings Plc in London. Sterling’s direction is “broadly moving sideways but if we get better U.S. numbers out over the next couple of weeks, that’s going to be more of a driver – how much dollar enthusiasm there is out there,” he said.

Bloomberg

Content is for general information purposes only. It is not investment advice or a solution to buy or sell securities. Opinions are the authors; not necessarily that of OANDA Business Information & Services, Inc. or any of its affiliates, subsidiaries, officers or directors. If you would like to reproduce or redistribute any of the content found on MarketPulse, an award winning forex, commodities and global indices analysis and news site service produced by OANDA Business Information & Services, Inc., please access the RSS feed or contact us at info@marketpulse.com. Visit https://www.marketpulse.com/ to find out more about the beat of the global markets. © 2023 OANDA Business Information & Services Inc.