Home UK retail sales fall – GBP/USD only briefly pauses
Forex News Today: Daily Trading News

UK retail sales fall – GBP/USD only briefly pauses

Worse than expected figures on all fronts + downwards revisions weigh on  GBP/US and halt the rally. Update: after the initial slide, cable resumes its rises. There are forces stronger than indicators these days.

  • Retail sales fell 1% against -0.3% expected and the previous figure was revised to 1.3% instead of 1.7%.
  • Year over year, it’s only up 2.6% after 4.5% and below 4.3% predicted.
  • Ex-fuel mm is down 0.9% against -0.3%.
  • Ex fuel y/y is up only 2.1% instead of 3.5%.

The UK was expected to report a drop of 0.3% in the volume of retail sales in December after a nice rise of 1.7% in November. Year over year, a rise of 4.3% was on the cards.

Before the publication, GBP/USD extended its recovery and advanced to 1.4275. Was the market front-running a specific outcome?

The pound was hit hard by Carney but enjoyed a nice relief rally on the stock market recovery and Draghi.

GBPUSD hourly chart January 22 2016

Yohay Elam

Yohay Elam

Yohay Elam: Founder, Writer and Editor I have been into forex trading for over 5 years, and I share the experience that I have and the knowledge that I've accumulated. After taking a short course about forex. Like many forex traders, I've earned a significant share of my knowledge the hard way. Macroeconomics, the impact of news on the ever-moving currency markets and trading psychology have always fascinated me. Before founding Forex Crunch, I've worked as a programmer in various hi-tech companies. I have a B. Sc. in Computer Science from Ben Gurion University. Given this background, forex software has a relatively bigger share in the posts.