Forexpros – The pound trimmed losses against the U.S. dollar on Thursday, as the effects of Japan’s currency intervention began to wane, while the Bank of England left interest rates unchanged at record lows in a widely expected decision.
GBP/USD pulled away from 1.6286, the daily low, to hit 1.6338 during European afternoon trade, still down 0.54% over the day.
Cable was likely to find support at 1.6249, Wednesday’s low and resistance at 1.6474, the high of August 1 and a two-month high.
The BoE said it was maintaining the benchmark interest rate at 0.50% and said it was to maintain the stock of asset purchases financed by the issuance of central bank reserves at GBP200 billion.
The minutes of the meeting of the bank’s monetary policy committee will be published on Wednesday, August 17.
The pound slipped earlier after Japanese authorities stepped into currency markets for the first time since March to curb the yen’s gains, amid concerns that the yen’s appreciation would hinder the largely export-based economy’s recovery from a downturn sparked by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.
In addition, the Bank of Japan announced additional monetary easing in order to support the Finance Ministry’s intervention to weaken the yen.
The pound was also lower against the euro, with EUR/GBP easing up 0.05% to hit 0.8722.
Later Thursday, the U.S. was to publish government data on initial jobless claims.
Forexpros
