Pound Sterling surrenders upbeat UK labor market data-driven intraday recovery
The Pound Sterling (GBP) gives up an upbeat United Kingdom (UK) labor market data-driven recovery against its major peers on Tuesday. The British currency falls back as Bank of England (BoE) Governor Andrew Bailey has reiterated his concerns over the economic outlook. Bailey said in an event hosted by Bruegel, in Brussels in Tuesday’s European session that we (officials) are facing a “weak growth environment” in the UK and added that we are in a period of “heightened uncertainty”.
Bailey also said in his interview with the BusinessLine on Monday that the economic outlook is sluggish and surprisingly upbeat Q4 Gross Domestic Product (GDP) data had not changed the “bigger picture”. In February’s monetary policy statement, the BoE halved its growth forecasts for the year to 0.75%. Read more…
GBP/USD Forecast: Pound Sterling holds ground after UK jobs data
GBP/USD fluctuates in a narrow channel slightly above 1.2600 after closing modestly higher on Monday. The pair’s technical outlook shows that the bullish bias remains unchanged in the near term.
The UK’s Office for National Statistics (ONS) reported early Tuesday that the ILO Unemployment Rate held steady at 4.4% in the three months to December. This reading came in better than the market forecast of 4.5%. Additionally, the Employment Change rose by 107,000 in this period, up sharply from 35,000 reported for the previous month. Finally, the annual wage inflation, as measured by the change in the Average Earnings Including Bonus, climbed to 6% from 5.6%. These figures seem to be helping Pound Sterling stay resilient against the US Dollar (USD). Read more…
