Sterling climbed after the minutes from July's BoE meeting showed all nine MPC members voted in favour of keeping the current quantitative easing (QE) programme at its existing level (£375 billion).
The pound climbed a cent and a half against the dollar on the back of the news but to be honest it all came as a bit of a surprise, this was the first meeting for new BoE governor Mark Carney and many (including myself) thought he may push for further stimulus from the outset.
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I still think we could see Mr Carney look to de-value the pound over the next few months and if he does we can expect to see GBP/USD exchange rates start to fall, in the mean time we will just have to wait and see which route the central back look to explore and if you are looking to buy dollars take advantage of any current gains.
The pounds performance was also boosted today after better than forecast unemployment and claimant numbers, figures released by the Office of National Statistics showed that the number of people now out of work fell by 57,000 for the three months running up to May and the number of people claiming Jobseekers fell by just over 21,000.
So what next?
With the BoE now looking at other alternatives it should give the pound a bit more breathing space. A run of positive data could see temporary gains and the pound push back up towards $1.55, though any improvement in the U.S jobs sector could see the Federal Reserve look to cut back on their current QE programme which in turn would mean GBP/USD rates slide. The next U.S job report will be released on the first Friday of August and I for one will be watching very closely.
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