Pound Falls as Retail Sales & House Prices Decline

The Great Britain pound slipped today against the US dollar as the reports today showed that the retail sales decreased and the house prices dropped in Britain. The sterling advanced versus the Japanese yen and the euro.

The UK retail sales went down 0.4 percent February from a year ago, when the sales had risen 2.2 percent in January. According to the Housing Market Survey by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, there were 26 percent more surveyors showing prices falling rather than rising. The report tomorrow is expected to show that the trade balance deficit decreased, but the trade balance still remained negative.
The increasing number of the Bank of England policy makers voting for an increase of the interest rates led to belief that week can expect an interest rates hike soon. Yet the poor fundamentals diminished the probability of such event. Britain’s central bank will make decision about the rates on March 10. The Official Bank Rate is expected to stay at 0.5 percent.
GBP/USD fell from 1.6200 to 1.6159 today as of 22:00 GMT and posted the intraday low of 1.3125. EUR/GBP dropped from 0.8620 to 0.8602, while GBP/JPY went up from 133.23 to 133.57.