Pound slides from high in Friday FX trading

Sterling moved further away from $1.68 in Friday afternoon FX trading after positive US data added to the Bank of England's decision to keep its monetary policy as it is.

Although it was expected that the MPC wouldn't move away from the 0.5 per cent base rate and £375 billion of QE, the pound's resulting struggle suggests that investors are starting to get a little antsy, given the largely impressive results that are consistently coming out of the UK.

Data from the US was pretty encouraging too on Friday, with University of Michigan consumer sentiment beating expectations by some way, while producer prices gained by 0.5 per cent last month, ahead of both forecast and February's final figure.

Those numbers, along with softening in the equities market, helped the dollar post some gains in Friday's FX trading, but it was a long way off repairing the damage sustained earlier in the week when it emerged that the US Fed's base rate may not go up as quickly as some had begun to believe.