Bank of England (BoE) and Sterling (GBP/USD) Price, Analysis and Chart:
- Bank of England leaves rates and quantitative easing unchanged.
- Sterling hits a two-and-a-half-year high against the US dollar.
The Bank of England (BoE) left all policy measures unchanged at its last meeting of the year, in line with market expectations. The BoE’s quantitative easing program remains at GBP895 billion after an additional GBP150 billion was announced at the November meeting. The term funding scheme has been extended by six months.
The MPC noted that UK-weighted global GDP growth is likely to be ‘a little bit weaker than expected at the time of the November Report’ and that the outlook for the economy remains ‘unusually uncertain’.
Pre-BoE decision, Sterling hit a fresh 32-high against the US dollar as traders continue to price-in a deal between the EU and the UK. The last few days have seen progress made between the two sides and the mood music has also changed for the better. The EU Parliament has just sent out a statement saying that this Sunday is the deadline for an agreement so that it can be debated and signed-off before the December 31 deadline, a nudge to both sides to keep talks moving.
GBPUSD is back above 1.3600 and looking to push further ahead. The pair have traded as high as 1.3625 today and now target the end of April 2018 weekly candle high of 1.3793. The moving averages remain positive, although the CCI indicator warns that the pair are in heavily overbought territory.
GBP/USD Daily Price Chart (April - December 17, 2020)
| Change in | Longs | Shorts | OI |
| Daily | 2% | -8% | -1% |
| Weekly | 9% | -9% | 3% |
Retail trader data shows 35.86% of traders are net-long with the ratio of traders short to long at 1.79 to 1.Positioning is less net-short than yesterday but more net-short from last week. The combination of current sentiment and recent changes gives us a further mixed GBP/USD trading bias.
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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 via Twitter @nickcawley1.
