Pound Falls Against Euro as Housing Sales Slide to Record Low

Pound Falls Against Euro as Housing Sales Slide to Record Low
By Matthew Brown

March 10 (Bloomberg) -- The pound fell to its weakest in more than five weeks against the euro after Britain’s housing sales slipped to the lowest level since at least 1978 and manufacturing shrank the most in four decades.
The U.K. currency dropped for a third day versus the 16- nation currency as the Bank of England prepared to print money to buy assets as part of a quantitative easing policy. The average number of transactions in a survey of real-estate agents and surveyors fell to 9.5 per respondent in the quarter through February, the least since the data began three decades ago, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors said today.
“Investors are saying we don’t like the banking situation in the U.K., the housing data was bad, and we’re nervous about the economy,” said Jeremy Stretch, a senior currency strategist in London at Rabobank International. “Quantitative easing is about to begin, and all these factors tell us to stand aside and wait until it gets cheaper.”
The pound weakened to 92.33 pence per euro by 5:20 p.m. in London, from 91.53 yesterday. It slipped to 92.48 pence earlier, the lowest level since Jan. 29. Against the dollar, the currency was little changed at $1.3784.
Factory production dropped 2.9 percent in January from December, the Office for National Statistics in London said. Economists in a Bloomberg survey predicted a 1.4 percent decline. Manufacturing shrank 6.4 percent in the three months through January, the most since records began in 1968.

Quantitative Easing
The Bank of England will seek to buy 2 billion pounds of gilts in an operation for its asset-purchase facility on March 11, it said last week. Policy makers said March 5 they will acquire as much as 150 billion pounds of government and corporate assets, the first central bank to adopt quantitative easing since the Bank of Japan in the 1990s.
“With the Bank of England taking far more aggressive steps than any other central bank, bar possibly the Federal Reserve, the pound remains vulnerable to the downside,” Derek Halpenny, the London-based European head of global currency research at Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ Ltd., wrote in a note today.
Policy makers cut the nation’s benchmark interest rate 4.5 percentage points to an all-time low of 0.5 percent since October as the economy headed for its worst recession since World War II. Gross domestic product contracted 1.5 percent in the fourth quarter, the most since 1980, a report on Feb. 25 showed.
The pound may still strengthen to 89 pence per euro in the next three months as the recession in the euro region economy deepens, Stretch said. For Merrill Lynch & Co., the euro’s gain against the pound may have gone to far.

Gilts Rise
“We will probably look to fade the move higher in the euro- pound if and when the short-term interest-rate spread-compression trend resumes,” wrote Steven Pearson, a London-based strategist at Merrill Lynch. “It is worth noting that with the Bank of England bank rate having likely reached its terminal level, pound-euro may now start to trade well during risk aversion.”
U.K. government bonds rose, with the yield on the 10-year gilt falling one basis point to 3.11 percent. The 4.5 percent security due March 2019 advanced 0.09, or 90 pence per 1,000- pound face amount, to 111.82. Two-year gilt yields slipped one basis point to 1.32 percent. Bond yields move inversely to prices.
The U.K. Treasury today sold 3 billion pounds of 4.5 percent bonds maturing in 2019. The sale received bids 2.06 times the amount offered, the Debt Management Office said, compared with an average 1.9 times at the last three auctions of the securities.

‘Carried Away’
“Investors are getting carried away with the euphoria surrounding quantitative easing,” said Ian Williams, chief executive officer of Charteris Portfolio Managers in London. “The Bank of England is a buyer of gilts, but the U.K. government is still a net seller of gilts. The compression in yields when the penny drops is going to be difficult to maintain, and the implications of quantitative easing are inflationary.”
The yield on the 10-year gilt may rise to 3.25 percent by the end of April, said Williams, whose U.K. government-bond fund beat all its competitors in January, according to data from Lipper and given to Bloomberg by Charteris.
Ten-year gilts may keep gaining, according to technical strategists at Barclays Plc.
“Bigger picture, the secular bull trend remains intact, particularly following the recent failure to overcome 3.82 percent-area support,” Barclays Capital analysts including Jordan Kotick in New York wrote in a report. The yield may move toward 2.70 percent “medium term,” they said.
To contact the reporter on this story: Matthew Brown in London at mbrown42@bloomberg.net Last Updated: March 10, 2009 13:43 EDT

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