Pound Rises on Good Data

The pound rose today against the euro and the US dollar after better-than-expected UK economic data.

For one, consumer confidence is apparently at its highest level in two years - what happened to those awful January retail sales figures? - and the services sector reported a good improvement February.

What with GDP growth for the final quarter of 2009 being raised to 0.3%, anyone would think that the country is in a pretty good state. Indeed, it was the fact that the recession was over that apparently made consumers head out and shop with less caution. Not only that but consumers are also very confident about the next six months - the most confident than they have been since 2004!

But this week alone, the pound was receiving a fair knock in the currency exchange market, as investors shied away from the uncertain political future of Britain. The short term outlook for the pound remains shaky though any better-than-expected data has sent some investors head back for the currency.