FX round-up: Sterling jumps against euro, US dollar leaps against Argentine peso

Sterling had a torrid run against the single currency on Thursday, after the European Central Bank managed to again catch foreign exchange traders on the hop by delivering a 'dovish' end to its plans to end quantitative easing.

In the background meanwhile, the US dollar was having somewhat of a delayed reaction against some of the main emerging market currencies, running up a gain of 6.58% against the Argentine peso to 27.9837 and quickly approaching nearly two-decade highs against Brazil's peso.

As ECB chief economist Peter Praet had pretty much already flagged up in a recent speech (triggering gains in the euro), the ECB's Governing Council announced plans to wrap-up QE by the end of 2018.

However, rate-setters also announced that there would likely be no interest rate hikes until September 2019 - at the earliest.

That news saw the pound jump by 0.92% versus the euro to 1.1448 as of 1900 BST.

Against the US dollar it was a different story, with Sterling off by 0.73% to 1.32775, weighed down by a somewhat 'hawkish' US central bank overnight and a very strong print on US retail sales volumes for May.

Also weighing on the pound was criticism of the Prime Minister from pro-European Union rebels within the Tory ranks, who after the market close said the Prime Minister had backtracked on her promise to give Parliament a say in the final round of negotiations with Brussels.

Significantly, Labour had already pledged its support for a second vote in the Commons on the amendment originally tabled by MP Dominic Grieve.

Nevertheless, the main boost to the US dollar came earlier, after the Commerce Department reported a 0.8% month-on-month rise in US retail sales volumes for May, double what economists had been expecting.

The news saw JP Morgan reportedly raise its forecast for second quarter US GDP growth to 4.0%, while Mickey Levy at Berenberg Capital Markets said he now saw "some" upside risks to his own call for a 4% growth over the three months to June.

Those figures also came on the back of a somewhat hawkish Fed overnight, with rate-setters in the States having nudged their forecasts for the expected pace of policy tightening in 2018 higher.