British pound sterling rose further against the greenback on Friday, due to consistent confidence of the ongoing Brexit progress as well as the current economic backdrop in Britain.
The British pound touched a high of $1.4289 on early trade before settling at $1.4178 against the dollar, which was still 0.3% higher from sterling’s previous close. Against the euro, the British pound sterling settled at 87.65 pence.
In addition, official data showed on Friday indicated Britain’s gross domestic product which rose by approximately 0.5% in the last quarter of 2017, which exceeds analysts’ expectations of 0.4%
In accordance to this, data showed on Friday indicated an unexpected rise in Britain’s economy in the last quarter of 2017, giving away signs that the hit from the previous Brexit vote in mid-2016 was not as bad as what analysts and investors had anticipated. In which, William Anderson Jones, head of UK corporate dealing at RationalFX claimed that these bullish data came at the end of a strong week for sterling, where it could raise investors’ expectations for a more robust monetary policy from the BoE meeting which is due in February.