The pound has risen sharply in early trading today, finally breaching €1.20 for the first time in nearly two years and the $1.36 for the first time in over two months.
The prompt appears to be fresh hopes that the threat of further lockdowns has fizzled out as Covid-19 becomes endemic in the population at a rate that the NHS can cope with. The government looks likely to cut the Covid isolation period to five days.
This morning’s sharp rise in sterling builds on a month of steady increases.
Later today US Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell will talk about plans for beating inflation, which is at its highest for 40 years in the USA.
In the business news today, housebuilders are counting the potential cost of replacing fire-risk cladding on low-rise buildings following a decision by the UK government in the wake of the Grenfell Tower disaster.
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