GBPUSD Movement
On Friday, the GBP rose 0.31% against the USD and closed at 1.6771, as the greenback lost ground following a more-than-expected fall in the US consumer sentiment index for May.
In the UK, a BoE policymaker, Andrew Haldane, defended the central bank’s stimulus measures by stating that Britain’s economy would not have performed well without the BoE’s QE measures lower interest rates of 0.5%. Separately, the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) urged the UK central bank to keep its loose monetary policy in place for as long as possible to avert an expected slow-down in two years’ time. However, despite, its warning, the BCC upgraded its economic growth forecast on the UK economy to 3.1% in 2014, from its earlier estimate of 2.8%. The agency also revised its 2015 UK growth estimates to 2.7% from 2.5% and left its 2016 forecast unchanged at 2.5%.
In the Asian session, at GMT0300, the pair is trading at 1.6745, with the GBP trading 0.16% lower from Friday’s close.
The pair is expected to find support at 1.6721, and a fall through could take it to the next support level of 1.6697. The pair is expected to find its first resistance at 1.6774, and a rise through could take it to the next resistance level of 1.6803.
Market participants keenly await the release of the UK Markit manufacturing PMI, mortgage approvals, consumer credit and M4 money supply data, for further cues in the British Pound.
The currency pair is trading between its 20 Hr and 50 Hr moving averages.
