Forex Pros – The pound slipped to a daily low against the U.S. dollar on Monday, as market sentiment weakened ahead of an emergency meeting of senior European Union policymakers to discuss the region’s debt crisis.
GBP/USD hit 1.5947 during early European trade, the daily low; the pair subsequently consolidated at 1.5976, shedding 0.50%.
The pair was likely to find support at 1.5910, the low of June 28 and resistance at 1.6077, Friday’s high.
On Sunday, EU President Herman Van Rompuy called an emergency meeting of senior policy makers to discuss plans for a second bailout package for Greece and assess the risk of the sovereign debt crisis spreading from Greece to Italy.
The meeting was called after the cost of insuring Italian sovereign debt against default rose sharply on Friday.
Meanwhile, concerns over a slowdown in U.S. growth also weighed, after government data on Friday showed that U.S. nonfarm payrolls rose by just 18,000 in June, far below the 89,000 increase forecast by economists, with employers hiring the fewest workers in nine months.
The unemployment rate unexpectedly rose to 9.2%, the highest level in six months.
Meanwhile, the pound was lower against the euro, with EUR/GBP shedding 0.33% to hit 0.8854.
The Bank of England kept interest rates unchanged at a record low of 0.5% last Thursday, in a widely expected decision and now looks increasingly unlikely to raise interest rates before next summer.
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