LONDON: Sterling slipped to a two-week low against the euro on Tuesday after a poll showed the campaign for Britain to exit the European Union ahead of the rival "In" camp.
The pound had already been trading weakly, knocked by a poor survey of manufacturing sector managers that underlined the economic risks from the June 23 referendum on EU membership.
But it was hurt further after the publication of the ICM poll, which showed 45 percent of voters favoured a Brexit, against 44 percent who believe Britain should stay in the 28-member bloc.
The poll was weighted to take into account the likelihood of respondents actually taking part in the ballot.
Sterling fell by as much as 0.8 percent against the euro to 79.20 pence, its weakest since Feb 19, after the poll was published.
"Polls coming out are certainly going to have a short-term influence - no one would deny that," said Simon Derrick, head of currency research at Bank of New York Mellon.
"But for me the interesting bit is that you can still sit back and look at this and see that simple things like yield differentials are still playing broadly the same role you would normally expect them to," he added, referring to the spread between UK and US market interest rates.
The slump in the PMI survey below 50 points - which points to a contraction of the sector - had already driven the pound down a third of a cent against the dollar.
Having earlier traded at a four-month high of $1.4770, sterling fell to as low as $1.4532 later in the day.
The pound has recovered steadily since reaching long-term lows around $1.38 in late February, after the date of the Brexit vote was announced.
It has surged in the past two weeks as bookmakers' odds shifted back against the "Out" camp in a vote seen by financial investors as a major risk to the British and European economies.
"Sterling has bounced too much against the dollar for me," Societe Generale analyst Kit Juckes said in a note.
"I like euro longs against the pound here. But our chosen expression of GBP weakness remains against the Norwegian crown."
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