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Last week ended on February 12, the second most popular pair on the foreign exchange market, showed a rather stabile tendency than several weeks before, trading around 1.457 level. The poor UK Industrial production data for December did not have a big effect on the pair. According to the Office for National Statistics, the data diminished to 0.4% year-on-year, while the monthly change declined 1.1% after an 0.8% drop previously. Meanwhile, manufacturing production fell 0.2% on a monthly basis, but the yearly pace deteriorated to -1.7% from -1.2% previously. Unfortunately, all indicators did not reach economists' expectations. The next day, Cable lost all its gains accumulated during the week amid global stocks sell-off and slipping commodity prices, however, managed to gain back by the evening of the day. Traders, in turn, switched their attention to the second day of Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen's testimony on monetary policy. The remark of the meeting indicated, that the perspective of the negative short-term interest rates is gloomy. Meanwhile, during the last day, Sterling posted a slight rebound, mainly due to a surge in oil prices. The price for WTI rose 5.42% being above $27, while Brent added 5.29% reaching $31.65.
This week the pair's sentiment strengthened, as now 78% of all votes are bullish on the cross, compared to the previous 66.7%. The average expectation for February 19 stays around the 1.461 level. Upcoming key events from the United Kingdom include monthly employment report on Wednesday and data on retail sales as well as public sector borrowing on Friday. The Fed, in turn, is to issue the minutes of its January monetary policy meeting on Wednesday and promulgate reports on manufacturing activity in Philadelphia and initial jobless claims.
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