- The British pound was higher against the euro and the dollar after reports that UK wages came in stronger than expected in the latest batch of UK labor market statistics.
- There are clear signs of a market pullback with the unemployment rate rising. According to the performance of the currency market, the price of the GBP/USD currency pair moved, breaching the 1.2000 psychological resistance level, and going up to the 1.2030 level, the highest for the currency pair in three months.
- This included the currency pair’s exposure to profit-taking operations, which pushed it towards the 1.1790 level before settling around the 1.0850 level at the time of writing the analysis.
Although wages in Britain were higher than expected in September, the country's unemployment rate rose with a three-month gradient measured over three months, recording a loss of 52,000, more than double the loss of 25,000 that markets expected. In response, the unemployment rate rose to 3.6%, up from 3.5% in August.
“The labor market is no longer shrinking,” said Samuel Tombs, chief UK economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, “But it will take a few more months before the impact of the downturn in business confidence is fully reflected in the jobs data,” he added.
Although Britain's high unemployment rate offers concrete evidence that the UK economy has taken a turn, the Bank of England still has work to do if it is to bring inflation back to 2.0%, given wages beat expectations and signs of rising inflationary pressures. The average wage rate, including bonuses, was 6.0%, higher than the expected 5.9% and slightly less than the upwardly revised 6.1% for August.
In the three months through October, the estimated number of job vacancies fell by 46,000 to 1,225,000. However, despite the four consecutive quarterly declines, the number of vacancies remains at historically high levels, another indication that the BoE has more work to do. Therefore, the Bank of England is likely to raise interest rates by 50 basis points in December, with further increases likely in early 2023.
This is a less shallow path of gains than envisaged in the wake of the September mini-budget, but more hikes will be needed to ensure the pound gets some support from UK bond yields. However, market responses to jobs data will remain relatively limited given the imminent release of CPI inflation today, and arguably a more pressing number for UK politicians and policy makers at the Bank of England.
Then there is Thursday's fall statement where the scale of tax increases and spending cuts could shape the domestic economic outlook for years to come.
GBP/USD Forecast
Despite the recent selling operations, the general trend of the GBP/USD currency pair is still bullish. The trend according to the performance on the daily chart will not turn to the downside without testing the support levels 1.1630 and 1.1480, respectively.
I still prefer to sell GBP/USD from every bullish level and that would be better than 1.2000 psychological resistance and above it. The sterling will be affected today by the announcement of British inflation figures and the statements of the Governor of the Bank of England. On the US dollar front, US retail sales figures will be announced
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