A drop in business expectations and a fall in mortgage approvals hurt sterling, as confidence in the UK economy was knocked back once again.

The business expectations index maintained by Lloyds dropped to -15, a fall of 22 points, down to its weakest level since March 2009. Meanwhile, a report from the Bank of England showed that 50,967 loans were granted in September, slightly above expectations, but still down from the 52,347 seen in August. Still, sterling’s main woes come from the ructions in the eurozone.

Leaders may have papered over the cracks last week, but the structure still looks dangerously fragile. Negative comments out of China about the nation not willing to become the ‘bailout patsy’ have not helped matters, and there are still jitters about whether the eurozone will actually have some real meat to put on the bones of last week’s bailout agreement.