The pound weakened for a third day against the dollar, reaching its lowest level in six weeks, before the Bank of England releases minutes of this month’s policy meeting. Sterling was little changed versus the euro. The nine- member Monetary Policy Committee led by Governor Mervyn King kept its key interest rate at a record low 0.5 percent on Nov. 10, and held its ceiling for quantitative easing at 275 billion pounds ($428 billion), after expanding it by 75 billion pounds in October. Ten-year gilts advanced for a third day, pushing the yield down to within one basis point of the lowest on record. The pound fell 0.4 percent to $1.5580 at 8:41 a.m. London time, after dropping to $1.5572, the lowest level since Oct. 12. The U.K. currency was little changed at 86.40 pence per euro. It reached 86.65 pence yesterday, the weakest since Oct. 31. Sterling dropped 0.3 percent to 119.94 yen, the first time it fell below 120 yen since Oct. 12. The pound has weakened 3.8 percent in the past 12 months, the third-worst performer after the Canadian and New Zealand dollars among 10 developed-market peers measured by Bloomberg Correlation-Weighted Indexes. The 10-year gilt yield dropped three basis points, or 0.03 percentage point, to 2.13 percent, after reaching 2.115 percent. The rate fell to 2.107 percent on Nov. 16, the least since Bloomberg began collecting data on the securities in 1992. The 3.75 percent bond due September 2021 rose 0.370, or 3.70 pounds per 1,000-pound face amount, to 114.20. The two-year yield was little changed at 0.47 percent. To contact the reporter on this story: Keith Jenkins in London at Kjenkins3@bloomberg.net To contact the editor responsible for this story: Daniel Tilles at dtilles@bloomberg.net

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