The pound fell versus the dollar, extending a weekly decline, as speculation the Federal Reserve may be moving closer to ending stimulus boosted demand for the U.S. currency. Sterling approached the lowest level in six weeks versus the greenback after Fed Bank of San Francisco President John Williams said yesterday the U.S. central bank may begin to taper off its monthly asset purchases as early as this summer. The U.K. Debt Management Office is scheduled to sell 2 billion pounds ($3 billion) of bills today. The pound fell 0.2 percent to $1.5244 as of 7:50 a.m. London time after declining to $1.5174 on May 15, the least since April 4. It has dropped 0.8 percent this week. Sterling was little changed at 84.38 pence per euro after depreciating to 85.17 pence on May 15, the weakest since April 25. The pound has fallen 2.2 percent so far this year, the third-worst performer after the yen and Australian dollar, according to Bloomberg Correlation-Weighted Indexes, which track 10 developed-nation currencies. The U.S. currency gained 5.1 percent and the euro strengthened 2.2 percent. To contact the reporter on this story: Neal Armstrong in London at narmstrong8@bloomberg.net To contact the editor responsible for this story: Paul Dobson at pdobson2@bloomberg.net

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