“¢ The British Pound remains supported by optimism over cross-party Brexit talks.
“¢ UK manufacturing PMI deteriorates sharply but was still slightly better than expected.
“¢ The prevalent USD selling bias remained supportive ahead of the latest FOMC decision.
The GBP/USD pair added to the previous session’s strong gains and climbed further beyond mid-1.3000s, fresh two-week tops in the last hour.
Having consolidated in a narrow trading band through the Asian session on Wednesday, the pair picked up the pace in the last hour and remained supported by the overnight Brexit development, wherein the UK PM Theresa May was said to target concluding Brexit negotiation with Labour by mid next week.
The bullish sentiment seemed rather unaffected by the latest release of UK PMI print, which showed that the UK manufacturing sector activity cooled-off sharply from 13-month highs and fell to a two-month low level of 53.1 in April, though was better than consensus estimates pointing to a reading of 53.0.
Apart from this, the prevalent US Dollar selling bias, amid firming expectations that the Fed will stick to its cautious stance in wake of steadily slowing US inflation, remained supportive of the ongoing positive momentum ahead of today’s key event risk – the latest FOMC monetary policy update.
Technical levels to watch