The British pound fell against the euro on Thursday, the rebound of the British economy by 15.5% in the third quarter not enough to reassure traders before a fourth quarter which will be weighed down by new confinement.

Around 8:10 p.m. GMT, the pound fell 1.05% against the European currency, to 90.02 pence for one euro.

If the United Kingdom experienced a marked increase in its economy in the third quarter, after its historic collapse of 19.8% in the second quarter, growth was already running out of steam in September (+1.1%).

"This shows that the recovery was already losing momentum even before further restrictions and then a second lockdown were imposed," commented analysts at Capital Economics.

To deal with the second wave of Covid-19, the government imposed a new month-long lockdown in England in November.

The pound had benefited earlier this week from the announcement of progress on a vaccine against Covid-19.

But “the British economy still has a long way to go to get out of the hole, even once there is a vaccine”, summarized Lee Hardman, analyst at MUFG.

The euro gained for its part 0.20% against the dollar, to 1.1801 dollar for one euro, benefiting from the intervention the day before of the president of the European Central Bank (ECB), Christine Lagarde.

If the latter worried about the risk of an "unstable" recovery, she said that the institution's giant loans "should remain the main tools for adjusting our monetary policy".

While traders were already anticipating an ECB intervention in December, "Ms. Lagarde's comments dampened expectations that the ECB might lower its key rates," Sucden analysts commented.