Overall it has been a pretty positive morning for the pound. There was some early pressure on the UK currency after trade balance data showed a larger gap than expected in July with a reading of -￡8.7 billion. While this wasn't positive news for sterling, it wasn't devastating either and the pound was able to find some support near 1.5375. The Bank of England (BoE) also announced today that they would leave the Official Bank Rate unchanged at 0.5% and the Asset Purchase Facility untouched at ￡200 billion. While this was widely expected, there had been some speculation that the BoE may have to expand the bond purchases after August data showed that manufacturing, services, construction and housing in the UK had all lost positive momentum. The fact that the bank did not feel the need at this point to ease monetary policy further, definitely had a positive impact on the pound. The momentum continued after better-than-expected employment and trade data was received in the US. That renewed momentum did not last long; however, and sterling ran into some headwinds after recovering almost 50% of yesterday's losses. Dan Cook, Chicago