POLL-Worst days may be over for battered pound

By Ross Finley

LONDON (Reuters) - The battered pound has seen its worst days and may even make some inroads against the U.S. dollar and euro over the coming months, a Reuters poll of foreign exchange strategists showed on Wednesday.

The pound is seen trading at around $1.45 to the dollar over the next six months, a little down on its current level around $1.51. Against the euro it was seen holding in a tight range close to current levels around 90 pence.

Those forecasts may suggest the pound has reached a bottom after falling some 30 percent to the euro in the past year.

But with interest rates expected to fall sharply on Thursday to 1.50 percent, their lowest in the Bank of England's 315-year history, there is no feeling of an imminent recovery.

"It's very hard to love sterling given the continued newsflow," said Paul Robson, foreign exchange strategist at RBS, who had the most accurate 12-month forecasts overall for dollar rates against the euro, pound and yen in the poll one year ago.

Indeed, October and November saw the pound crash by around 15 percent against the dollar, culminating in a year that has marked its worst drubbing since 1929 as it appeared more and more clear Britain had slipped into a deep recession.

The euro delivered another body blow in December, coming to within a whisker of parity with sterling from 84 pence at the start of the month. Continental Europeans rushed in droves to London to snap up even bigger post-Christmas sale bargains.

But the pound has since recovered smartly, to around 91 pence to the euro on Wednesday and Robson says the euro has probably already seen its peak.