Sterling has been gaining ground on the success of the U.K. vaccine rollout, but will upcoming data shake things up?
Here’s what market watchers are expecting.
Employment data (Feb. 23, 7:00 am GMT)
- Claimant count change to show 35K increase in joblessness for January
- Average earnings index to improve from 3.6% to 4.1% for three-month period ending in December
- Unemployment rate to tick higher from 5.0% to 5.1%
- Better than expected results (ie. lower claimant count figure or higher average earnings index) could signal a recovery and boost GBP
- Keep in mind, though, that stricter lockdown measures were imposed in the U.K. around December last year
Technical snapshot
- Short-term moving averages shows that majority of GBP pairs are in bullish territory.
- The bullish run on GBP/NZD is weakening while EUR/GBP and GBP/AUD are on bearish grounds.
- Daily volatility over the last seven days shows that the pound moved the most against NZD at 116 pips, followed by GBP/AUD at 88.7 pips
