The pound firmed on Thursday, taking advantage of a rare bit of dollar weakness and the pushing back of expectations of Bank of England rate cuts to drag itself further from Tuesday's five-month low on the greenback. Changing expectations of central banks' rate policies has brought currency volatility back in recent weeks, and, like most currencies, the pound has been a victim of the dollar's strength across the board, as resilient U.S. data and sticky inflation cause markets to give up on earlier expectations of a Federal Reserve rate cut in June. But there have also been two important data points for the pound this week, which have both led to markets slightly pushing back their expectations for the first rate cut from the BoE, now seen as only just more likely than not in August.