LONDON (AFP) - The pound zig-zagged against the major currencies after a volatile day when traders turned their focus towards the release of a US labour market report on Friday.
Having started Wednesday down against the dollar and the euro, sterling rallied with unexpectedly strong house price data.
However, the pound shed most of those gains when official industrial and manufacturing numbers proved very weak.
The National Statistics office said manufacturing output in August fell 0.8 percent from the previous month -- against expectations of a modest 0.3 percent increase.
The sharp fall was the biggest monthly decline since October 2002, when output slid by 1.3 percent.
The data is likely to cement expectations that the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) will keep its key repo rate unchanged at 4.75 percent.
The MPC's rate-setting two-day meeting will conclude Thursday and analysts will question whether the committe will raise rates again in November.
Sterling had earlier found a boost from stronger-than-expected UK house price data.
The monthly house price index from the Halifax found that house prices rose by 1.4 percent in September from the previous month for an annual rise of 20.5 percent -- raising the average house price to 162,911 pounds.
In August, prices fell 0.6 percent from July but rose 21.3 percent from the previous year.
While the quarterly data from Halifax shows clearly that property prices are cooling, traders chose to focus on the headline numbers.