Pound Sterling Price News and Forecast: GBP/USD posts modest losses near 1.3535

GBP/USD Price Forecast: Maintains constructive uptrend above 1.3500 despite mild losses

The GBP/USD pair trades with mild losses around 1.3535 during the early European trading hours on Thursday. Markets might turn cautious ahead of the UK Gross Domestic Product (GDP) report and the US Retail Sales data, which are due later on Thursday.

Traders raise their bets on rate hikes from the Bank of England (BoE) this year, given the expected impact on inflation from higher oil prices. Money markets are fully pricing in a hike by the November policy meeting, with a second rate hike priced in by April 2027, according to Reuters. Prior to the US-Iran war, traders had been expecting the BoE to lower interest rates twice this year. Read more...

British Pound weakens below 1.3550 on renewed US strikes on Iran

The GBP/USD pair declines to near 1.3530 during the early Asian session on Thursday. The British Pound (GBP) weakens against the US Dollar (USD) as renewed conflict and shipping disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz have reignited energy-driven inflation risks. Traders brace for the UK monthly Gross Domestic Product (GDP) report and the US Retail Sales data, which are due later on Thursday.

The US military said it has launched another wave of strikes against Iran in a further effort to keep the Strait of Hormuz open, per the Guardian. Explosions were reported late on Wednesday on Iran’s Qeshm Island, Bandar Abbas, and locations in the Sistan-Baluchestan province. Read more...

The British Pound Sterling breaks out on the strength of someone else's weakness

Cable spent the London morning drifting, printed the session low at 1.3381 shortly after 10:00 GMT, and then spent the New York afternoon repricing the entire Dollar complex. The Pound trades near 1.3540 at writing, up better than 1% in one of its strongest sessions of the year, after tagging 1.3558 and clearing both the 200-day Exponential Moving Average (EMA) and the 1.3400 handle in a single afternoon. The move answers a month of indecision around those levels with the subtlety of a brick.

The significance here is structural rather than cosmetic. The 50-day and 200-day EMAs sit clustered at 1.3376 and 1.3385, and most of July's price action had been compressed between that band and the 1.3400 shelf, a coil that has now released in one direction. A single session does not repair a downtrend that ran from late April into early July, but it does shift the burden of proof onto Dollar bulls for the first time in months. Read more...