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The Sterling was suffering the third straight day of weakness against the US Dollar on mixed job data for Britain yesterday morning. On the report, GBP/USD fell 28 pips or 0.21% to the 1.3159 mark, though the currency pair managed to return into the green area, offsetting losses to start Thursday session near the 1.3220 mark.
The Office for National Statistics' release showed that unemployment claims rose more than estimated by 1.7K in August, while the jobless rate remained unchanged at 4.3% in the same period. Relatively robust employment picture fell short to be translated into strong pay growth, which continued to squeeze the UK consumers and complicated the BoE plans to make interest rate hike.
| Historical Data Table: UK Claimant Count Change | Economic Calendar for 18.10.2017 | ||||||||
| Date | 14.06.2017 | 12.07.2017 | 16.08.2017 | 13.09.2017 | 18.10.2017 | 8:30 AM | UK Retail Sales | ||
| Actual | 7.3K | 5.9K | -4.2K | -2.8K | 1.7K | 12:30 PM | US Unemployment Claims | ||
| Forecast | 12.5K | 10.5K | 3.2K | 0.8K | 1.3K | 1:30 PM | Fed's George Speech | ||
| Initial Reaction on Main Pairs | SWFX Sentiment Indexes | ||||||||
| Open Price | Close Price | % Change | Longs | Shorts | |||||
| GBP/USD | 1.31877 | 1.31598 | -0.21% | GBP/USD | 60.65% | 39.35% | |||
| EUR/GBP | 0.89197 | 0.89259 | 0.07% | EUR/GBP | 39.57% | 60.43% | |||
| GBP/CAD | 1.65096 | 1.64817 | -0.17% | GBP/CAD | 64.48% | 35.52% | |||
| GBP/JPY | 148.395 | 148.248 | -0.10% | GBP/JPY | 48.90% | 51.10% | |||