The British pound is the only currency that has managed to strengthen against the US dollar today.
This was due entirely to a much better than expected retail sales report. The market had been looking for retail sales to drop by 0.2 percent, but instead consumer spending grew by 1 percent last month. Apparently strong food sales have offset any slowdown that would have come from less discounting. At face value, this appears to indicate that consumers have not slowed down, which reduces the possibility of aggressive easing by the Bank of England for the remainder of the year. Basically unless these numbers reverse themselves sharply next month, the Bank of England will probably only ease interest rates by another 25 instead of 50bp. The Bank of England however continues to pump money into the financial system which indicates that they are not completely comfortable with the current liquidity conditions.