© Dukascopy Bank SA
The Pound/Dollar currency cross traded in highly-volatile manner during the previous working week. On Wednesday the pair continued with its upward trajectory that began on Monday. Sterling rose 0.35% and traded at 1.5632 against the Greenback, hitting a fresh intraday high and retreating further from its 18-months lows. However, by the end of the week on Friday the Pound fell 1% to the 1.5417 level, hitting a fresh 17-month low, few hours after the data on manufacturing activity in the UK was announced. Business activity and output in the UK manufacturing sector has been cooling in the second half of 2014, dragged down by weaker exports as political uncertainties and economic headwinds both at home and abroad undermined market sentiment. Markit's headline PMI measure fell unexpectedly to 52.5 points and remained below estimates of 53.5. Meanwhile, consumer confidence index in the US increased marginally to 92.6 points, but manufacturing PMI came in at 53.9 points, missing expectations for 54 but topping the flash reading of 53.7 earlier in December.
Concerning the present week, sentiment experienced some changes, but the vast majority of all votes are still negative on the GBP/USD currency pair, namely 58% of them. The average prediction for Friday of this week is located around the 1.540 major level. Next week is expected to be full of important fundamental news. British construction PMI has already has been announced on Monday and fell to 57.6 points from 59.4 in November. Also, the BoE interest rate decision and the asset purchase facility are due to be released on Thursday, followed by industrial production and trade balance a day later. Among important American news, ISM Non-Manufacturing PMI will be released on Tuesday and non-farm payrolls and the unemployment rate later on Friday.
© Dukascopy Bank SA