Comments made by the governor of the bank of England earlier in the week sent the pound souring against other currencies. Mervyn King revealed that the Monetary Policy Committee voted 9 – 0 in favour of not pumping any more money into the economy. This has widely been viewed as excellent news as it indicates that the economy is improving and no longer needs this support from the central bank. Following this news the pound rose 1.8% against the US Dollar and 1.1% against the Euro.
The MPC also agreed unanimously to maintain the base rate at 0.5% therefore bringing continued relief to many mortgage borrowers.
Continuing the good news global stock markets have continued to bounce back with the FTSE now standing at 5200 points, somewhat higher than its March low of 3500 points.
The UK housing market has also showed continuing signs of improvement. All of the main house price surveys have reported increases over the last month with The Halifax and Nationwide house price indexes revealing growth of 1.6% and 0.9% respectively during September. Rightmove who monitor asking prices with their survey have shown that there was an increase of 0.6% compared to August.
