Pound Falls Second Day Against Euro as U.K. Retail Sales Decline
By Lukanyo Mnyanda - May 8, 2013
The pound weakened for a second day versus the euro after an industry report showed a gauge of U.K. retail sales unexpectedly declined last month.
Sterling was little changed against the dollar. Sales at stores open at least 12 months, measured by value, dropped 2.2 percent in April from a year earlier, the British Retail Consortium said. The median forecast of analysts in a Bloomberg survey was for an increase of 1.9 percent. The Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee starts a two-day meeting today.
The pound depreciated 0.2 percent to 84.64 pence per euro as of 7:39 a.m. London time, after weakening 0.4 percent yesterday. Sterling traded at $1.5491. It reached $1.5606 on May 1, the strongest since Feb. 13.
A separate report is forecast to show U.K. house prices increased in April. Home values rose 0.2 percent from March, Halifax, the mortgage unit of Lloyds Banking Group Plc will say today, according to the median forecast of 11 economists in a Bloomberg News survey.
The U.K. currency has appreciated 1.9 percent in the past month, the best performer among 10 developed-market currencies tracked by Bloomberg Correlation-Weighted Indexes. The dollar rose 0.2 percent, while the euro gained 1.1 percent.
The Debt Management Office is scheduled to sell 1.1 billion pounds of inflation-linked gilts maturing in 2044 today. The U.K. last sold the securities on March 21 at a so-called real yield of minus 0.033 percent, the lowest on record, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Gilts returned 1 percent this year through yesterday, according to indexes compiled by Bloomberg and the European Federation of Financial Analysts Societies. German bonds gained 0.5 percent and Treasuries earned 0.4 percent.
To contact the reporter on this story: Lukanyo Mnyanda in Edinburgh at lmnyanda@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Paul Dobson at pdobson2@bloomberg.net
