Pound soars despite weak job data

The British pound has reversed directions on Tuesday and posted sharp gains. In the European session, GBP/USD is trading at 1.1902, up 1.22%. The pound has punched above 1.19 for the first time since August 19th.

UK wage growth a headache for BOE

The UK employment report was soft, with unemployment ticking higher to 3.5%, up from 3.4%. Unemployment rose by 3.3 thousand, down from 3.9 thousand but well off the consensus of -12.6 thousand. The BoE will be most concerned about the increase in wage growth, which will create even more inflation, at a time when inflation is above 10%. Wages excluding bonuses rose to 5.7%, up from 5.5% and ahead of the consensus of 5.6%. There isn’t much slack to speak of in the labour market and the BoE will be under pressure to continue hiking aggressively, even though this will hurt the struggling UK economy.

The Fed may be breathing a bit easier today, as the exuberance which sent the stock markets flying last week appears to have subsided. Investors jumped all over the soft inflation report, as risk sentiment soared and the US dollar retreated. Fed members have responded by sticking to a hawkish script, as any dovish signals could complicate its battle to bring down inflation. Fed Vice Chair Brainard said on Monday that she favored slowing the pace of rate hikes, but that further hikes were required in order to bring down inflation.

Brainard’s stance was echoed by Fed member Waller who said that while the Fed may ease up on the size of future rate hikes, it should not be seen as a “softening” in its fight against inflation. Waller added that the 7.7% inflation reading in October was “enormous”, a possible rebuke of the exuberance shown by investors to the drop in inflation.

.

GBP/USD Technical

• GBP/USD has broken through several resistance lines today. The next resistance lines are 1.2030 and 1.2224
• 1.1703 and 1.1648 are providing support

Content is for general information purposes only. It is not investment advice or a solution to buy or sell securities. Opinions are the authors; not necessarily that of OANDA Business Information & Services, Inc. or any of its affiliates, subsidiaries, officers or directors. If you would like to reproduce or redistribute any of the content found on MarketPulse, an award winning forex, commodities and global indices analysis and news site service produced by OANDA Business Information & Services, Inc., please access the RSS feed or contact us at info@marketpulse.com. Visit https://www.marketpulse.com/ to find out more about the beat of the global markets. © 2023 OANDA Business Information & Services Inc.