Sterling slips after BoE Decision
|The GBPUSD pair was trading 0.40% weaker on Thursday and was hovering at around 1.2800 during the US session, shortly after the Bank of England monetary policy decision.
While the BOE kept rates unchanged at 0.75% as expected, two surprise dissents appeared as Michael Saunders and Jonathan Haskel wanted to lower the benchmark by a quarter-point with consensus looking for a unanimous decision.
The dissenting duo - which cited threats to the outlook and signs of a turn in the labor market - represented the first votes for looser policy since 2016.
From other news, China's commerce ministry said that it had agreed with the US to roll back tariffs on each other's goods in phases as the two nations work toward a trade deal. This was another bullish news for US stocks, which surged to fresh record highs afterward. The greenback was also bid.
From a technical perspective, the 1.28 level could be strong support for the cable as it has held a couple of times already in the not-so-distant past. However, if this level is broken to the downside, larger stop-losses of long positions could be hit, which might lead to a steeper decline, with the trend most likely changing back to bearish in this scenario. The next target for bears could then be at 1.2650.
On the upside, if today's dip is bought, the immediate resistance stands at around 1.29 and if bulls push the pound beyond this level, we could see another retest of the psychological level of 1.30
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