GBP / USD
The labor data from the United Kingdom came out good yesterday, but the overall strengthening of the US dollar prompted investors to close positions against buying the pound on middle-sized investors due to expansion in trading volumes. The unemployment rate fell from 4.3% to 4.2%. Nevertheless, the growth of applications for unemployment benefits by 11.6 thousand and revision of the February index from 9.2 thousand to 15.1 thousand indicates the weakness of the new value of 4.2%. The average wage growth in February, without taking into account the premiums, was 2.8% versus 2.6% in January. While taking into account the premiums, salaries had increased by 2.8% which maintained the growth rate in January. The forecast was higher at - 3.0%.
In the United States, industrial production for March increased by 0.5% against the forecast of 0.3%, which also contributed to profit-taking.
Today, there is a block of British inflation data in the March assessment. The consumer price index is expected to remain unchanged at 2.7% YoY, while the base CPI is projected to grow from 2.4% YoY to 2.5% YoY. The retail price index may show a decline from 3.6% YoY to 3.5% YoY. The forecast for residential property prices is in a wide range of 4.8% YoY to 5.0% YoY versus 4.9% YoY in February. Procurement producers prices (entry prices) are expected to increase by 0.3-0.4% monthly after the previous collapse of 1.1%. Thus, the potential growth of the pound remains at the target 1.4410.* The presented market analysis is informative and does not constitute a guide to the transaction.
