During Friday morning, the GBP/USD exchange rate tested the resistance level - the weekly PP at 1.3099.
The rate could gain support of 55- and 100-hour SMAs, and re-test the given resistance.
UK Retail Sales
The British Pound depreciated against the US Dollar, following the UK Retail Sales data release on Friday at 09:30 GMT. The GBP/USD exchange currency rate lost 36 pips or 0.28% right after the release. The British Pound continued trading at the 1.3050 level against the Greenback.
The Office for National Statistics released the UK Retail Sales data, which came out worse-than-expected of negative 0.6% compared with the forecast of 0.5%.
According to the official release: "All sectors except household goods stores and fuel saw a decline in the quantity bought for the three-month on three-month movement; driven mainly by non-food stores at negative 1.0%. The quantity bought in December 2019 fell by 0.6% when compared with the previous month; the fifth consecutive month of no growth."
Economic Calendar
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GBP/USD short-term review
Yesterday, the GBP/USD exchange rate raised to the 1.3080 level. During Friday morning, the rate tested the resistance level—the weekly PP at 1.3099.On the one hand, it is likely that bears could prevail in the market, and the currency pair could trade downwards. In this case the pair could target the weekly S1 at the 1.2985 mark.
However, note that the exchange rate could gain support of the 55– and 100-hour SMAs, currently located in the 1.3040 area. The rate could re-test the given resistance. If it holds, the rate could consolidate in the short run.
Hourly Chart
On the daily candle chart, the December channel down pattern can be observed.
In theory, if the upper trend line of the pattern holds, the rate should get squeezed in between the support of the 55-day simple moving average near 1.3000 and the resistance of the trend line.
Daily chart
Meanwhile, trader orders were slightly bullish. In the 100-pip range, 58% of orders were to buy and 42% were sell orders.