Within the Euro-zone, markets were uneasy surrounding the Greece debt situation and the French Presidential election.
Ahead of the Eurogroup meeting, there were optimistic comments from Eurogroup head Dijsselbloem.
There were still concerns surrounding the French Presidential election with opinion polls still putting Le Pen ahead in first-round voting intensions while the theoretical gap between Le Pen and Macron for the second round narrowed to 61.5% – 38.5% according to the latest IFOP poll.
The CBI industrial orders survey rose to 8 for February from 5 the previous month and this was the highest reading for two years. The balance of export orders held at -1-%, although the BI stated that this remained above the long-term average while a net 32% of companies expected to raise prices over the next quarter, the strongest rate of increase since April 2011.
GBP/USD strengthened during the European session without making a challenge on the 1.2500 resistance area with a peak around 1.2480.