Sterling Gains As U.K. Delays Formal Brexit Trigger

The British pound strengthened temporarily Monday after a spokesman for U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May indicated that the formal process to begin the country's exit out of the European Union won't be triggered this week. The spokesman said the so-called Article 50 process wound't be initiated until next week at the earliest, the Independent newspaper reported. May had been expected to invoke Article 50 as early as Tuesday. "We have been clear. The prime minister will trigger Article 50 by the end of March," the spokesman said, according to the report. The pound traded as high as $1.224 versus the dollar in the wake of the report. But it pulled back to around $1.2229 in recent action, near where it traded ahead of the report but still up from $1.2168 in late New York trade on Friday. The euro traded at 87.23 pence, down 0.6%.

Copyright © 2017 MarketWatch, Inc.