GBP/USD clings to gains, comfortably above 1.2700 handle post-UK data

The GBP/USD pair maintained its strong bid tone near one-week tops and had a rather muted reaction to the latest UK retail sales data.

The pair built on this week's goodish bounce from the vicinity of the key 1.2500 psychological mark, or multi-month lows, and continued gaining strong positive traction for the third consecutive session on Thursday.

The post-FOMC free fall in the US Treasury bond yields kept exerting some heavy downward pressure on the US Dollar and turned out to be one of the key factors fueling the momentum beyond the 1.2700 handle.

With the prevailing USD selling bias acting as an exclusive driver of the pair's strong up-move, bullish traders seemed rather unaffected by Thursday's mixed release of the UK monthly retail sales figures.

In fact, the headline sales fell -0.5% in May as compared to -0.1% recorded in the previous month while core figures came in slightly better-than-expected, showing a decline of 0.3% as against 0.4% consensus estimates.

The disappointment, however, came from yearly figures, which showed a sharp deceleration to 2.3% and 2.2% in the headline and core figures respectively as compared to 5.1% and 4.7% growth in the previous month.

Moving ahead, market participants now look forward to the latest BoE monetary policy decision for some fresh impetus, though seems more likely to be a non-event for GBP traders amid persistent Brexit uncertainties.

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