GBP/USD keeps the red below 1.3200 post-US data, Powell’s speech in focus
- GBP/USD witnessed an intraday pullback from weekly tops amid a modest USD rebound.
- Thursday’s mixed US economic data failed to impress the USD bulls or provide any impetus.
- The key focus will remain on the highly anticipated speech by the Fed Chair Jerome Powell.
The GBP/USD pair traded with a mild negative bias during the early North American session and had a rather muted reaction to the latest US macro data.
The pair witnessed some intraday selling and retreated around 65 pips from weekly tops, near the 1.3230 region set early this Thursday. A softer risk tone extended some support to the US dollar's relative safe-haven status and was seen as one of the key factors exerting some pressure on the GBP/USD pair.
Apart from this, the USD uptick lacked any obvious fundamental catalyst and could be solely attributed to some repositioning trade ahead of the highly anticipated speech by the Fed Chair Jerome Powell at the Jackson Hole Symposium. However, expectations of dovish Fed signals kept a lid on the attempted USD recovery move.
On the economic data front, the second estimate of the US GDP came in to show that the economy contracted by 31.7% annualized pace during the second quarter as against 32.9% estimated previously. Separately, the US Initial Weekly Jobless Claims matched estimates and fell to 1 million from 1.10 million previous.
In the absence of any big divergence from the expected readings, the data failed to provide any meaningful impetus ahead of the key event risk. Meanwhile, the technical set-up remains in favour of bullish traders and hence, any meaningful dip might still be seen as a buying opportunity and is more likely to remain limited.
Technical levels to watch