GBP/USD edged lower by 0.2% on Thursday, settling close to 1.3350 in a strained trading session that kept the pair pinned near three-month lows. Price briefly recovered earlier in the day on reports that Iran had indirectly signaled openness to talks with the CIA, but the bounce faded as Israeli officials reportedly advised Washington to disregard the overture. 

China’s economic data are often treated with a degree of caution by global investors. The challenge is not necessarily that the numbers are incorrect, but that they can describe very different parts of a vast and complex economy. Nowhere is that more evident than in China’s PMIs.