GBP/USD: Traders await US employment data amid Brexit jitter

GBP/USD trades a shade lower than 1.3100 ahead of European open on Friday.
The pair declined to the month’s low after pessimism surrounding Brexit and USD strength took their toll on Thursday.
While 1.3090 and 1.3030 can offer immediate support to the pair, 1.3185 acts as strong upside resistance.

Anil Panchal FXStreet

GBP/USD seesaws near 1.3100 before London open on Friday. The pair recently dropped after lack of Brexit progress and disappointments from the ECB pushed markets toward the US Dollar. While on-going Brexit saga can continue affecting pair moves, the US jobs report for February month can also play its part to entertain traders.

Thursday couldn’t please Cable buyers as various news conveyed the EU-UK difference on Irish backstop delivering no Brexit deal and fewer chances of having one before next week’s British parliament voting on the UK PM Theresa May’s second referendum.

Sellers gained control after the European Central Bank (ECB) disappointed global market with its growth and inflation forecast cut joining hands with a change in forward guidance and new TLTRO.

Latest developments on the Brexit suggest the UK PM is likely pushing the EU leaders to accept her Irish backstop plan. However, the EU has already given time till Friday end to the British policymakers to come up with something new for Irish backstop to regain the region’s confidence.

In case of the February month US jobs report, the headline nonfarm payrolls (NFP) are likely to have softened to 180K from 304K while the average hourly earnings (YoY) might have increased to 3.3% versus 3.2% earlier. Also, the unemployment rate bears the consensus to test 3.9% against 4.0% prior.

GBP/USD Technical Analysis

1.3090 is likely immediate support for the GBP/USD pair, a break of which can further drag it to 1.3030 and then to 200-day simple moving average (SMA) figure of 1.2990.

On the upside, the pair needs to overcome the 1.3185 support-turned-resistance to revisit 1.3260 and 1.3310 resistances.

Author

Anil Panchal

FXStreet

Anil Panchal has nearly 15 years of experience in tracking financial markets. With a keen interest in macroeconomics, Anil aptly tracks global news/updates and stays well-informed about the global financial moves and their implications.

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