Some good gains were seen in the GBP exchange rates on Thursday following news that the military would play a pivotal role in deploying vaccines to the whole of the UK.
Despite the gains, they were capped by speculation that the Bank of England will have no other option other than to slacken its monetary policy in order to ease the economic implications of the latest lockdown measures. As a result, the currency rounded off the day at 1.1059 against the Euro and 1.3569 against the US Dollar according to the Foreign Exchange Market.
Poor EUR data releases placed some pressure on the Euro yesterday, forcing it to struggle. There were poor performances seen in both inflation and retail sales with November seeing a significant drop in retail sales, leading to concerns for investors. This meant that the EUR to USD was a cent lower while the Euro to Pound rate weakened.
The US Dollar did strengthen yesterday following an increase in US bond yields after it was confirmed that Democrats would take control of the senate. Better-than-expected ISM non-manufacturing PMI release also bolstered the greenback as well as a decrease in the initial jobless claims last week.