Sterling Price (GBP) Analysis, Price and Charts
- GBP/USD trades just off its recent seven-month high as the General Election nears.
- US Labor Report may spark some US dollar action.
Q4 GBP Forecast and Top Trading Opportunities
GBP/USD Pauses for Breath, Daily Chart Looks Overbought
Cable (GBP/USD) remains just off its seven-month high print around 1.3165 as traders start to move to the side lines ahead of next Thursday’s General Election vote. The pound has performed strongly over the last three months and it may be that the currency is becoming fully-valued, considering next week’s risk event. Incumbent PM Boris Johnson still holds a healthy 9-12-point lead according to a variety of recent polls, enough to give him a working majority in Parliament, and the ability to push Brexit through by the end of January. Political commentators were looking for the Conservative lead over Labour to narrow going into the final week - as it happened in 2017 – but this has yet to occur.
Bookmakers are making the Conservative party, strong odds-on favourites to win the election with a majority, and currently it is hard to argue against this. As always, one major slip-up from either one of the two major parties may make a difference to the polls in the last couple of days.
Ahead the latest US non-farm payroll report with the market expecting 183,000 new jobs created in November. This figure may be high if there is any correlation to this week’s private jobs report – ADP – which saw just 67,000 jobs created compared to expectations of 140,000 and a prior month’s 125,000.
GBPUSD has made its first, unsuccessful, attempt at the May high at 1.3177 which guards the short-term target at 1.3382. After here, there are a couple of old swing highs around 1.3475 (June 2018) and, to a lesser extent, 1.3620 (May 2018). This should be the extent of the move if the Conservatives win a majority, with relief giving way to realization that tough trade talks lie ahead. GBP/USD is fairly well supported between 1.2970 and 1.3015.
The IG Client Sentiment indicator shows traders are 57% net-short GBP/USD, which normally would give us a bullish contrarian bias. However, recent daily and weekly changes currently give us a bearish outlook for GBP/USD.
GBP/USD Daily Price Chart (February – December 6, 2019)
Traders may be interested in two of our trading guides – Traits of Successful Traders and Top Trading Lessons – while technical analysts are likely to be interested in our latest Elliott Wave Guide.
What is your view on Sterling – bullish or bearish?? You can let us know via the form at the end of this piece or you can contact the author at nicholas.cawley@ig.com or via Twitter @nickcawley1.
