© Dukascopy Bank SA
Despite the domination of bearish expectations, the Sterling was developing in a rather bullish environment during the previous trading week, but temporary upward movements were sometimes changed by negative tendencies. The pair started last week at the 1.4996 level following Greek anti-austerity Syriza party's election win on Sunday. Nevertheless, the Pound pulled away from session highs against the Dollar on Tuesday, after the release of disappointing UK economic growth and mortgage approvals data. UK economy decelerated more than economists estimated, by posting the quarterly advance pace of 0.5%. However, even with this figure the UK economy recorded its best performance since 2007, as it grew 2.6% year-on-year. Meanwhile, the International Monetary Fund announced that the country is going expand 2.7% in 2015. On Wednesday, hovering close to one-and-a-half week highs the pair reached 1.5213 level as market sentiment improved ahead of the Federal Reserve's upcoming policy statement. Nevertheless, the Cable decreased slightly on Friday. following the release of mixed UK economic reports. As a result, it closed the week on the 1.5075 level.
Despite negative development of the pair during the end of January 26-30 week, participants of our weekly Community Forecasts quiz decided to become more positive on the Cable, as 56% of all votes are bullish. The average prediction, in turn, is now located at 1.509 level. This week's key events from Britain include Markit manufacturing PMI, which has been already announced and showed an increase to 53.0 points. Meanwhile, the BoE interest rate decision and the asset purchase facility's volume will be released on Thursday, but is forecasted to show no change. In the United States, ISM non-manufacturing PMI is due to be published on Wednesday, followed by a scheduled nonfarm-payrolls' announce on Friday.
© Dukascopy Bank SA