Pound Sterling Price News and Forecast: GBP/USD softens to near 1.3470 in Friday’s Asian session

British Pound weakens below 1.3500 as US launches new wave of strikes against Iran

The GBP/USD pair trades on a softer note around 1.3470 during the Asian trading hours on Friday. Geopolitical tensions in the Middle East trigger risk-off market sentiment and weigh on the Cable. The preliminary reading of the Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for July is due later on Friday.

The United States (US) has carried out major strikes on Iran for the sixth day in a row. Officials in southern Iran’s Bandar Abbas reported that civilian infrastructure, including power facilities and a train station, has been hit. Read more...

The British Pound Sterling gets a new Prime Minister and an old problem

Sterling is enduring its heaviest session of the month, with GBP/USD fading around half of one percent to just below 1.3500 after the week's advance stalled short of 1.3550 for a second consecutive day. The pullback trims a July run that has carried the Pound roughly 400 pips off the yearly low printed just below 1.3150, and it arrives with the daily Stochastic Relative Strength Index pressing overbought territory near 90, exactly the setup in which extended rallies get taxed.

Thursday's London data gave Sterling nothing to work with. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) grew 0.1% MoM in May, barely reversing April's contraction, while industrial production fell 0.5% against expectations for a far shallower dip, and only a modest manufacturing beat kept the morning from reading as an outright stall. A Bank of England (BoE) deputy governor then delivered remarks that markets scored as unmistakably dovish for the speaker, leaning on growth risks rather than the inflation overshoot. Read more...