The Great Britain pound rallied today even as data showed that manufacturing shrank last month. The good part of the report was that the sector’s decline was smaller than anticipated by analysts.
The Markit/CIPS UK Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index rose from 48.6 in March to 49.8 in April, while specialists have expected it to stay unchanged. The data was not good, strictly speaking, as the reading below 50.0 indicated contraction of the industry, but at least it was better than market participants have hoped for. Of course, traders were favoring the sterling recently, making it rally even amid poor fundamentals.
GBP/USD rose from 1.5530 to 1.5568, trading near the strongest rate since February 13, and GBP/JPY rallied from 151.30 to 151.97 as of 10:09 GMT today.
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