Hot Now: Sterling near 11-month highs

LONDON: Sterling traded close to 11-month highs against a broadly weaker dollar on Wednesday, as investors focused on a two-day Bank of England meeting that should provide clues on whether interest rates could be hiked in coming months.

A purchasing managers' index (PMI) survey showing growth in Britain's construction industry tumbled to an 11-month low in July had little impact on the currency.

The pound briefly touched Tuesday's high of $1.3245 after the data, the strongest since mid-September, which it had hit after the equivalent survey for the manufacturing sector came in stronger than expected.

It eased back to around $1.3235, up around a quarter of a percent on the day.

"I don't think we took a lot of direction from the construction PMI, as it’s such a small part of the economy," said RBC currency strategist Adam Cole. "...Cable (sterling/dollar) is really just being dragged up by euro/dollar at the moment."

Although analysts agreed that the construction numbers did not matter too much for sterling, they nevertheless were the latest in a run of weaker data from the British economy, which got off to a sluggish start to the year with an annualised growth rate of just 1 percent.