GBP/USD soars on hopes of a more hawkish BOE
|US equities wavered on Wednesday as concerns about the Omicron variant rose. The Dow Jones index rose by 57 points while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 declined by 8 and 135 points, respectively. The mixed performance happened as the US reported more than 885k new Covid-19 cases on Wednesday. Boeing was among the best performing stocks after the company received a large order from Allegiant Air.
Crude oil continued its bullish trend on Wednesday after mixed inventories data from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) and American Petroleum Institute (API). Data published by the API showed that the number of US inventories fell by more than 6.4 million barrels last week. In its part, the EIA said that inventories declined by 2.4 million barrels. Analysts were expecting the data to show that inventories fell by 3.2 million barrels. Oil prices also rose as investors reacted to this week’s OPEC+ meeting. The members decided to extend their gradual supply increase plan.
The US dollar rose slightly after the strong jobs numbers from the US. According to ADP, US private companies added 807k jobs in December after adding another 505k in the previous month. The data came a day after the Labor Department showed that the US had over 10 million job vacancies. Later today, the US will release the latest initial jobless claims numbers. And on Friday, the US will release the official non-farm payrolls data. The US dollar will also react to the latest ISM non-manufacturing PMI data.
XBR/USD
The XBRUSD pair rose to a high of 80.98 in the overnight session. This was the highest price since November. It was also slightly above the important support at 70.95, which it struggled moving above several times since December. It has moved above the 25-day and 50-day moving averages while the Relative Strength Index (RSI) tilted higher. Therefore, the pair will likely keep rising as bulls target the key resistance at 82.
EUR/USD
The EURUSD pair rose slightly after the FOMC minutes. It rose to the key resistance level at 1.1341, which was along the upper side of the horizontal channel. It is also slightly above the 25-day moving average while the Stochastic Oscillator and the Relative Strength Index (RSI) have tilted higher. Therefore, the pair will likely remain in this range ahead of the US NFP data.
GBP/USD
The GBPUSD pair continued its bullish breakout as demand for the sterling continued rising. It is trading at a multi-month high of 1.3570, which is above the 25-day moving average. It is also above the ascending trendline shown in red. Also, its oscillators have continued rising. Therefore, the pair will likely keep rising as investors target the key resistance at 1.3600.
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