Pound weaker on retail sales data

Pound weaker on retail sales data

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The pound weakened Thursday after retail sales in the UK were reported lower in May and on comments from a Bank of England official that the UK economy might not expand either this year or next.

The Confederation of British Industry reported that 17 percent of retailers surveyed said that sales fell this month, while only 3 percent said that sales were up.

Meanwhile, the euro benefited from new data from the European Commission that showed executive and consumer sentiment on the upswing.

At just before 11 a.m. in New York, the pound traded at 87.33p to the euro while it took $1.5964 to buy a pound and $1.3941 to purchase a euro.

The Japanese yen was also weaker on data showing that retail sales were lower and that Japanese investors bought more foreign assets.

Japan’s trade ministry reported that retail sales there was down 2.9 percent in April from the same month last year.

New US data, meanwhile, made it look as if the economy is getting better, making investors more willing to buy higher-yielding currencies, funding the purchases with the lower-yielding yen.

US durable goods orders were reported up 1.9 percent in April and the Labor Department said that there were 623,000 new unemployment claims filed last week in the US, fewer than had been anticipated.

The new jobless numbers were seen as positive even though the total number of Americans receiving unemployment benefits rose to 6.78 million, the most since 1967, and the number of new claims were well above last year at the same time, when 378,000 new claims were filed.

In morning trade in New York, the yen traded at ¥96.73 to the greenback and at ¥134.8529 to the shared currency.