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The British Pound weakened against the Greenback, following the UK Retail Sales data release on Thursday. The GBP/USD currency pair lost 12 pips, or 0.09%, to continue fluctuating in the 1.4171 area.
The Office for National Statistics revealed lower-than-expected retail sales data for the month of March. Britain's sales volume declined by 1.2%, compared to 0.8% increase in the prior period.
One of the main reasons for such low consumer spending was due to the snow storms over the UK or as they call it: "Beast from the East", that discouraged people to go for a shopping, thus preventing the sales volume to increase to the forecast level.
| Historical Data Table: UK Retail Sales m/m | Economic Calendar for 19.04.2018 | ||||||||
| Date | 14.12.2017 | 19.01.2018 | 16.02.2018 | 22.03.2018 | 19.04.2018 | 12:00 PM | US FOMC Member Speak | ||
| Actual | 1.00% | -1.40% | -0.20% | 0.80% | -1.20% | 12:30 PM | US Unemployment Claims | ||
| Forecast | 0.40% | -0.80% | 0.50% | 0.40% | -0.50% | 1:30 PM | US FOMC Member Speak | ||
| Initial Reaction on Main Pairs | SWFX Sentiment Indexes | ||||||||
| Open Price | Close Price | % Change | Longs | Shorts | |||||
| GBP/USD | 1.41934 | 1.4177 | -0.12% | GBP/USD | 44.62% | 55.38% | |||
| EUR/GBP | 0.87248 | 0.87298 | 0.06% | EUR/GBP | 40.40% | 59.60% | |||
| GBP/CAD | 1.79098 | 1.78915 | -0.10% | GBP/CAD | 28.01% | 71.99% | |||
| GBP/JPY | 152.371 | 152.156 | -0.14% | GBP/JPY | 39.85% | 60.15% | |||