The British pound rose against the dollar on Wednesday after UK Prime Minister Theresa May survived a vote of no confidence in the parliament.
Sterling traded 0.1 percent higher at $1.2866 at 2:18 p.m. ET.
On Wednesday, 325 British lawmakers said they had confidence in the government, while 306 said they did not.
May was widely expected to survive the vote, which came a day after the UK parliament shot down a proposed deal for the country to exit the European Union.
That defeat on Tuesday, however, increased the possibility of a softer exit from the EU. Goldman Sachs even said the loss increased the chances of Brexit being completely scrapped.
Jamie Dimon, CEO of J.P. Morgan Chase, said earlier on Wednesday that a hard Brexit — meaning the UK leaves the union without access to the EU’s single market — would be a disaster for the country. Speaking at the Economic Club of New York, he said: “The Brits were dealt a bad hand and they played it badly.”
