The pound strengthened over the US dollar on Friday by 1.17 cents to close the day at the 1.4840 level after investors’ confidence improved on hopes that the global economy may be stabilizing. With this confidence, there was a fall in safe haven demand for the dollar despite a barrage of negative economic data coming out of the US - 633,000 people lost their jobs in March and unemployment hit a 25-year high of 8.5%. Furthermore, average hourly earnings stayed the same in March as they were in February, whilst average weekly hours fell in March. In the UK, Halifax house price data showed that property prices fell by 1.9% in March and 17.5% in April, whilst the purchasing manager’s index services showed that conditions in the British service sector improved.
In today’s trading the pound has continued to improve, rising above 1.49 and hitting a two month high as investors remain confident. There are no major economic announcements in either the UK or the US today.
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