POUNDED

British Sterling Falls to All-Time Low Against Dollar

The U.K. currency’s crash came after the new finance minister announced radical tax-cutting plans last week.

The United Kingdom appears to be plunging into a full-blown currency crisis after the pound plummeted to a record low. The pound was trading as low as $1.035 early Monday morning, continuing an alarming trend triggered by a raft of radical tax cuts for corporations and the highest earners unveiled Friday by new British finance minister Kwasi Kwarteng. The tax cuts, coupled with eye-wateringly expensive plans to fight Britain’s spiraling cost of living crisis with borrowed money, have drastically weakened the currency with traders now betting on an emergency interest rate rise from the Bank of England in November. “The U.K. is now in the midst of a currency crisis,” Vasileios Gkionakis, Citigroup’s head of foreign exchange strategy, told the Financial Times.