QE optimism lifts pound
STERLING hit a three-week high against the US dollar yesterday following comments from Paul Fisher, head of markets at the Bank of England, who said that quantitative easing (QE) was now working.
“I feel much more confident now that the asset purchase programme is having the scale and speed of impact that we would have hoped for when we started,” Fisher said in an interview with the Financial Times.
Sterling rose as high as $1.6134 in trading yesterday and it also gained against the euro to reach £0.92.
Duncan Higgins, analyst at Caxton FX said: “Fisher’s statement has lifted sterling off multi-month lows against both the euro and the dollar, as speculators revise their predictions for next month’s QE decision.”
The market remains split as to whether the Bank will announce an extension to QE beyond the current £175bn already authorised.