Pound Jumps on Falling Jobless Claims & BoE Minutes

The Great Britain pound climbed today as unemployment claims fell and the minutes of the last Bank of England meeting reveled that policy makers were considering usage of other tools than asset purchases to revive the struggling UK economy.

The number of people claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance dropped as much as 21,200 in June from the prior month. The decrease was biggest in three years and far above analysts’ prediction.

The BoE minutes showed that the members of the Monetary Policy Committee voted unanimously to hold interest rates and the size of asset purchases unchanged. Furthermore, the minutes said:

Given the already large size of the asset purchase programme, there was merit in pursuing a mixed strategy with regards to the different policy instruments at the Committee’s disposal.

It looks like Governor Mark Carney is less willing to rely on quantitative easing than his predecessor.

GBP/USD jumped from 1.5156 to 1.5208 as of 22:11 GMT today. GBP/JPY advanced from 150.20 to 151.49 (0.8 percent), while EUR/GBP tumbled from 0.8680 to 0.8625 (0.6 percent).

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