The pound was little changed against the dollar before a government report that economists said will show U.K. manufacturing production contracted in April for the first time in three months. Sterling was also little changed versus the euro. The U.K. is scheduled to sell 3.75 billion pounds ($5.8 billion) of new 10-year benchmark securities today. British manufacturing shrank 0.2 percent in April from the previous month when it expanded 1.1 percent, the Office for National Statistics will say today, according to a Bloomberg News survey. A separate report will show industrial production stalled after increasing 0.7 percent in March. The pound was at $1.5584 at 7:38 a.m. London time. It climbed to $1.5684 on June 6, the highest since Feb. 13. The U.K. currency was at 85.18 pence per euro. Sterling has appreciated 5.7 percent in the past three months, the best performer of 10 developed-market currencies tracked by Bloomberg Correlation-Weighted Indexes. The dollar gained 0.7 percent and the euro rose 2.6 percent. A house-price index increased to 5 in May from 1 in April, the London-based Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors said in an e-mailed report today, citing a monthly poll of property surveyors. A positive number means more respondents saw values increase rather than decline. Measures of new-buyer inquiries and newly agreed sales reached levels last seen in 2009. The U.K. will auction 2.25 percent bonds maturing in September 2023 today. It last sold 10-year securities on April 9 at an average yield of 1.734 percent. The government is also due to sell 2.25 billion pounds of gilts due in June 2032 on June 13. Gilts handed investors a loss of 1.9 percent this year through yesterday, according to Bloomberg World Bond Indexes. German bonds dropped 1.2 percent and U.S. Treasuries declined 1.4 percent. To contact the reporter on this story: David Goodman in London at dgoodman28@bloomberg.net To contact the editor responsible for this story: Paul Dobson at pdobson2@bloomberg.net

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