The Pound edged higher on Thursday and this was mainly down to comments from the European Central Bank.
It announced that interest rates would be maintained, keeping them at an all-time low. Furthermore, the currency also benefited from solid CBI Industrial data as manufacturing grew in the three months up to June. To add to this, retail sales rose by 0.5% and that helped to bolster the Pound. At the end of the day, it finished at 1.1695 against the Euro and 1.3768 against the Us Dollar according to the Foreign Exchange Market.
The Euro saw losses yesterday as it reacted to the news that the ECB would not be tightening its monetary policy. It has also said that its bond-buying programme would remain in place until March 2022. Additionally, consumer confidence figures were worse than expected and this placed a lot of pressure on the single currency.
The US Dollar also struggled as the markets reacted to a 53% week-on-week increase in covid cases. This left investors concerned that the economic recovery would slow down and not continue at the pace it has seen in recent months.