Sterling rises

Sterling rose on Monday, as gains in share prices and news that British bank Barclays may sell a fund management unit to beef up its capital boosted appetite for the UK currency. The dollar fell broadly as rising global equity prices prompted investors to sell the highly liquid currency and buy assets perceived to be riskier.
But sterlings uptrend lost some steam by late afternoon, as the dollar shed some losses. "The dollar has recovered some of its losses against the whole range of currencies; cable has come down because the dollar has strengthened," said Robert Minikin, senior FX strategist at Standard Chartered.
By 1449 GMT, sterling was up 0.5 percent at $1.4085 after hitting a one-week high of $1.4229, according to Reuters data. Sterling had hit a six-week low of $1.3653 last week. The euro was flat at 92.38 pence after falling as low as 91.46 pence.
Shares in Barclays rose 19 percent after the bank confirmed it was in talks to sell its iShares unit which could pay the costs of its participation in a UK asset protection scheme, analysts say.
"The UK economy has a high dependence on its financial system. A high percentage of the populations net worth stands within housing assets," said Neil Jones, head of hedge fund FX sales at Mizuho in London. Asking prices for houses in England and Wales were 9.0 percent lower than a year ago this month, slightly less than Februarys record 9.1 percent annual drop, property website Rightmove said.
The lack of any outward division at a meeting of G20 finance ministers and central bank governors in southern England ending on Saturday also supported risk appetite, analysts said. Meanwhile, the Bank of England held its second auction as part of its so-called "quantitative easing" policy of boosting the money supply.
The BoE bought 1.990 billion pounds of long-dated in gilts in an auction on Monday. The bank plans to buy up to 3.0 billion pounds in gilts on Wednesday. It has said it would buy 75 billion sterling in mostly gilts over the next three months.