Pound weaker after MPC minutes

The pound weakened versus the greenback and the euro Wednesday after a release of the minutes of the most recent Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee meeting showed that Bank Governor Mervyn King wanted more spending for asset purchases to help the UK economy than the £50 billion pounds in extra spending that was approved by the Committee.

According to the minutes, two other MPC members also advocated for spending higher amounts.

In early afternoon trade in New York, the pound traded at 86.13p to the euro while it took $1.654 to buy a pound.

The US dollar was weaker as US equities markets were up on higher oil prices and investors looked for riskier investments, but in afternoon trade the greenback looked like it was beginning to gain back some of its declines.

At 1:46 p.m. in New York, the US currency traded at $1.4245 to the euro while it took ¥93.905 to buy a dollar.

Meanwhile, the Norwegian krone traded at 6.0578 to the dollar on the gains in crude oil prices, which came after the news that crude inventories in the US took an unexpected plunge last week.

The yen saw gains in relation to the euro after equities declines in China, with the Japanese currency trading at ¥133.7678 to the shared currency in afternoon trade in New York.

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