The Sterling pound today rallied from its daily lows after the Bank of England maintained its current monetary policy stance by leaving interest rates unchanged. The GBP/USD currency pair had fallen to its daily lows following the release of the latest UK retail sales data early in the London session.
The GBP/USD currency pair today rallied to a high of 1.2500 but failed to break above this key level before reversing course and falling to its daily lows at 1.2439 then retracing some of its losses.
The currency pair opened today’s session trading sideways before rallying to its daily highs as investor sentiment improved. News reports suggesting that the EU was willing to let the UK table a Brexit offer also served to limit the pair’s initial losses. The release of the UK retail sales data for August by the Office for National Statistics drove the pair lower as the prints missed consensus estimates. The monthly retail sales came in at -0.2% versus the expected 0.0% figure, while the annualized print was recorded at 2.7% missing expectations set at 2.9%. The pair kept falling until the Bank of England released its monetary policy report maintaining interest rates at 0.75% and keeping the asset purchase target at £435 billion.
The cable fell slightly following the release of the upbeat US initial jobless claims report by the Department of Labor and the positive Philadelphia Fed manufacturing survey.
The currency pair’s future performance is likely to be affected by Brexit headlines and other geopolitical events.
The GBP/USD currency pair was trading at 1.2489 as at 13:07 GMT having recovered from a low of 1.2439. The GBP/JPY currency pair was trading at 134.82 having rallied from a low of 134.7.
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