The last trading session of this week was mixed for the Great Britain pound. It fell versus the US dollar, rose against the Japanese yen and trimmed the drop versus the euro.
The sterling felt downside pressure from speculations that the Bank of England will leave the monetary policy extremely accommodative for the time being. Indeed, David Miles, a member of the Monetary Policy Committee, defended the current asset-purchase program. He said:
I do not think we should be in any hurry in the UK to move the monetary policy dials back to more normal settings â indeed it might well be right for the next move in the UK to push them even further to give more support to demand.
Prospects for continuing monetary stimulus weakened the pound. Mark Carney takes office as the head of the BoE on July 1 and it will be interesting to see his opinion regarding the future path for the central bank.
GBP/USD fell from 1.5255 to close at 1.5208. GBP/JPY rose from 150.03 to 150.83. EUR/GBP rallied from 0.8542 to 0.8588, but retreated and closed at 0.8556.
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