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Pound advances toward $1.30 as risk of BoE hawkish dissent looms

London - The pound is nearing another milestone in its recovery against the dollar, with the currency approaching the $1.30 level for the first time since September.

Sterling rose against most of its major peers Wednesday and is this year’s best-performing Group-of-10 currency, even as the fallout from Britain’s decision to leave the European Union is starting to show in economic data. This has kept the Bank of England (BoE) from lifting interest rates despite rising inflationary pressures.

The central bank is scheduled to release its policy decision on Thursday alongside its quarterly Inflation Report. The BoE will lift its 2017 inflation forecasts and lower its growth projections this week, according to economists surveyed by Bloomberg, but whether this will mean more Monetary Policy Committee members opting for a hawkish dissent is unclear.

“The market may even get excited about tomorrow’s MPC meeting,” Kit Juckes, strategist at Societe Generale, wrote in a note. “Pricing of a rate hike at that meeting is still tiny, as indeed is the case for the next three meetings, but any hint of a hawkish bias in MPC comments can be latched onto.”

If the pound breaks through the $1.30 mark, it would “probably trigger a sharper move upward,” Juckes said, adding that the collapse in sterling volatility is also supporting the currency.

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