Sterling climbed to a four-week high against the dollar on Monday, with market positioning, strength in global stocks and a report on the UK housing market all helping the pound claw back earlier losses.
Sterling had traded lower against the dollar and euro for most of the European session on Monday after a Bank of England policymaker said the central bank should continue its quantitative easing programme because the financial system has yet to fully recover.
Adam Posen's comments to the UK's Sunday Times had eclipsed sterling-friendly house price data from property website Rightmove, which showed asking prices for homes in England and Wales up on an annual basis for the first in more than a year. But global stocks extended gains as the session progressed, with Wall Street up 1 percent and major European indices up over 1.5 percent, This encouraged buying of perceived "riskier" assets at the expense of the dollar, which fell broadly.
With the currency market's bets against sterling at record levels, according to some measures, the pound eventually regained ground lost earlier in the day. "Cable pushing higher is in line with the housing market data being a little bit better, and equity markets moving up again. Sterling does seem to be benefiting from this move taking place against the dollar at the moment," said Ian Stannard, senior strategist at BNP Paribas in London.
At 1555 GMT, sterling was up a third of a percent against the dollar at $1.6407, climbing as high as $1.6425. Earlier on Monday it fell as low as $1.6240. The euro was broadly flat on the day at 91.10 pence, having traded as high as 91.90 pence. Last week, the euro hit a 6 1/2-month high of 94.13 pence. The BoE's trade-weighted sterling index was last fixed at 79.60, matching Friday's highest since September 24.
Earlier on Monday, property website Rightmove said asking prices rose 0.2 percent on the year in October - the first annual rise since June 2008. On the month, asking prices rose 2.8 percent, the biggest increase since February 2008 and the largest for a month of October in six years, Rightmove said.