Pound set to rise to $1.35 by end of year

The pound is on course to rise to its highest point against the US dollar in more than two years, driven by mounting optimism about the UK economy and greater political stability compared with Europe and America.

Sterling could climb to $1.35 by the end of this year, up from just under $1.30 today, according to Amundi, a French fund manager with £1.8 trillion in assets under management. Such a strengthening would represent a rise of about 7 per cent against the dollar since the start of this year.

Andreas Koenig, head of global FX at Amundi, said: “You have an improvement in the economic environment and you have a relatively stable government, so you have a lot of arguments in favour of sterling.” He