- GBP/USD stood tall near multi-month tops despite a goodish pickup in the USD demand.
- Stellar US monthly jobs report assisted the greenback to build on its intraday recovery.
- The GBP bulls also seemed unaffected by the lack of progress in the post-Brexit trade talks.
The GBP/USD pair maintained its strong bid tone through the early North American session and climbed to levels beyond the very important 200-day SMA. The pair shot to the highest level since March 12, albeit seemed struggling to extend the momentum further beyond the 1.2700 mark.
The pair prolonged its recent positive momentum and continued gaining traction for the seventh consecutive session on Friday. The bullish trend remained uninterrupted despite a goodish pickup in the US dollar demand following the release of stronger than expected US monthly employment details.
In fact, the headline NFP showed that the US economy added over 2.50 million jobs in May, beating consensus estimates pointing to a loss of 8 million jobs by a big margin. This was accompanied by a positive surprise from the unemployment rate, which unexpectedly fell to 13.3% from 14.7% previous.
The British pound, however, outperformed its American counterpart and seemed largely unaffected by the lack of progress in the post-Brexit trade talks. The EU’s chief negotiator Michel Barnier accused the UK of backtracking on commitments on key issues and said that no significant progress had been made at the end of this week’s fourth round of EU-UK trade negotiations.
Barnier further added that the new deal must be sealed by October 31 at the latest and the door is still open to a transition period extension. Meanwhile, a senior UK negotiating official told Reuters that October is too late for a deal with and that we need to work intensively now, and into July.
With bulls ignoring a combination of negative factors, some follow-through buying above the 1.2700 mark should now set the stage for additional gains. The pair might then aim to test the 1.2745-55 intermediate resistance before aiming to reclaim the 1.2800 round-figure mark.
Technical levels to watch
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