Forexpros – The pound was steady against the U.S. dollar on Thursday, as investors remained cautious ahead of a press conference by the European Central Bank president amid sustained worries over the euros zone’s debt crisis.
GBP/USD hit 1.5650 during U.S. morning trade, the daily low; the pair subsequently consolidated at 1.5676, easing up 0.01%.
Cable was likely to find support at 1.5584, the low of December 9 and resistance at 1.5773, the high of December 23.
ECB President Mario Draghi and Bank of England Governor Mervyn King were to hold a joint press conference in Frankfurt later in the day after a meeting of the European Systemic Risk Board.
In the U.S., a report by the University of Michigan’s said earlier its index of overall consumer sentiment rose to 69.9 in December, exceeding expectations for a rise to 68.2.
The report came after the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis said that gross domestic product increased at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.8% during the third quarter, down from a previous estimate of 2.0%.
Analysts had expected the second estimate of U.S. gross domestic product to remain unchanged at 2.0%.
A separate report showed that the number of people who filed for unemployment assistance in the U.S. last week fell unexpectedly to the lowest level since April 2008, dropping to 364,000.
Meanwhile, sterling was fractionally higher against the euro with EUR/GBP inching down 0.04, to trade at 0.8320.
Earlier Thursday, the U.K.’s Office for National Statistics said that the country’s economy expanded 0.6% during the third quarter, up from a preliminary estimate of 0.5%. Annualized GDP rose at a rate of 0.5%, in line with expectations and unrevised from an initial estimate.
Separately, the ONS said that the country’s current account deficit widened to GBP15.2 billion in the third quarter, the highest since records began in 1955. Economists had expected the current account deficit to stand at GBP5.5 billion.
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