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Forex traders have got behind sterling as it rose by half a US cent to $1.6232 before it eased to $1.6200, which was still an increase of 0.2 per cent on the day, Reuters reports.
The advance comes after British retail figures - announced today by the Office for National Statistics - increased by 1.9 per cent in January, bouncing back after the poor weather conditions in December.
This result was stronger-than-expected and the December figures were revised down to minus 1.4 per cent from minus 0.8 per cent.
But Peter Dixon, economist at Commerzbank, said January's figures compared to November are only up by 0.5 per cent, which he noted was still "fairly sluggish".
He added: "I don't think we should get too excited until we have a couple of months of additional data, which I suspect will tell us that spending growth remains fairly weak."
This comes after the pound was up by 0.3 per cent yesterday afternoon following a speech by Bank of England member Andrew Sentance.
Posted by Greg Secker
