GBPUSD Movement
For the 24 hours to 23:00 GMT, GBP traded flat against the USD and closed at 1.5866.
GBP had come under pressure after reports showed an unexpected jump in February UK public borrowing. The public sector net borrowing reported a deficit of £12.9 billion in February, compared to a surplus of £10.2 billion in January.
Adding to the bearish sentiment, the minutes of the Bank of England’s March meeting showed that two dissenting Monetary Policy Committee members wanted to expand the bank’s quantitative-easing program.
The minutes of the Bank of England (BoE) meeting revealed the bank retained its quantitative easing unchanged to £325 billion, against two member’s vote for an expansion of quantitative easing by £25 billion. All members voted to retain a record low 0.5% interest rate.
Meanwhile, at annual budget speech, UK’s Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne stated that the UK economy is likely to avoid a technical recession and is seen expanding faster than expected earlier and revised its growth forecast for the UK economy FY2012-13 to 0.8%, from the November estimate of 0.7%.
In the Asian session, at GMT0400, the pair is trading at 1.5867, with the GBP trading 0.01% higher from yesterday’s close.
The pair is expected to find support at 1.5815, and a fall through could take it to the next support level of 1.5763. The pair is expected to find its first resistance at 1.5921, and a rise through could take it to the next resistance level of 1.5975.
Trading trends in the pair today are expected to be determined by the release of retail sales data in the UK.
The currency pair is showing convergence with its 20 Hr and 50 Hr moving averages.
