Sterling rises against weak dollar ahead of UK spending plan

Business Business: Sterling rose against the dollar on Monday, as the dollar gained on Friday’s better-than-expected US jobs report and investors eyed Britain’s government spending plan later this week.
The pound has been helped by Britain’s economy, which has proved relatively resilient to global turmoil.
However, investors will be eyeing Wednesday’s spending review, which will set government departments’ budgets through 2029, covering most of the remainder of the Labour Party’s term, while concerns about Britain’s sovereign debt levels remain.
The pound rose about 0.4% to $1.3575.
It was steady against the euro, which was marginally lower at 84.21 pence.
Finance Minister Rachel Reeves said on Thursday that more optimistic business surveys and strong first-quarter GDP indicated Britain’s economy was recovering from a weak end to 2024, but the public is impatient for living standards to improve.

This week’s April data on U.K. jobs, growth and industrial output won’t show much, said Kit Jukes, chief FX strategist at Societe Generale.

“I think the economy is weak. The economy will ultimately be a weakness for sterling because we don’t have any room for fiscal policy, not a lot of economic momentum.”

However, he said good wage growth on average has helped the economy.

“The U.K. economy is not growing, but some wage growth is getting people into the shops and into the bars. And so I think the world is full of sterling bears who are getting frustrated.”