Investing.com - Sterling was higher on Monday, amid hopes rose that the Conservative Party will win the upcoming election and the U.K. will leave the European Union as planned.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson promised to bring a Brexit deal to parliament before Christmas. His Conservative Party leads in opinion polls ahead of the Dec. 12 election.
"The markets are holding on to any sort of positivity we get at the moment," said Sean MacLean, research strategist at Pepperstone, a brokerage in Melbourne. "We want to keep that momentum going."
GBP/USD rose 0.4% to 1.2883 as of 4:14 AM ET (9:15 GMT) while EUR/GBP fell 0.4% to 0.8553.
EUR/USD was flat at 1.1020 after the German Ifo index showed that German business confidence rose this month, after the euro zone's largest economy avoided falling into a recession. The Ifo business climate index rose to 95.0, up from 94.7 in October, but the Munich based institute warned that Germany's manufacturing sector was still stuck in recession.
Meanwhile, trade sensitive currencies gained ground on positive trade deal news. China announced over the weekend that it plans to improve protection for intellectual property rights, which was one of the main sticking points in negotiations with the U.S.
U.S. national security adviser Robert O'Brien also said on Saturday a deal was possible by the end of the year.
The trade-sensitive Australian dollar was up slightly, with AUD/USD rising 0.1% to 0.6791, while NZD/USD gained 0.2% to 0.6420. The USD/CNY fell 0.1% to 7.0349.
Elsewhere, the U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback’s strength against a basket of six major currencies, was steady at 98.150.
-Reuters contributed to this report.