GBP/USD 1H
The GBP/USD pair continues to move quite strangely on August 11, completely ignoring the Kijun-sen line, which is important and strong. As of today, we are forced to state that buyers failed to go above the 1.3169 level, and sellers failed to continue moving down after overcoming the critical line. Thus, there is even a kind of flat, which can easily turn into a resumption of the upward trend. Despite the fact that the US dollar has significantly fallen in price recently, traders still do not see any reasons to buy this currency, even if it is technically necessary to correct it.
GBP/USD 15M
Both channels of linear regression turned up on the 15-minute timeframe, showing the hopelessness of the US dollar at this time. The latest Commitment of Traders (COT) report for the British pound, which was released on Friday, finally matched what is happening now in the market. Recall that two COT reports previously showed a decrease in the net position of non-commercial traders, which, in fact, means that the bullish mood is weakening. That is, the most important category of "non-commercial" traders reduced (roughly speaking) purchases of the British pound during the last two weeks and at the same time the UK currency became more expensive. However, the latest COT report finally showed an increase in the number of Buy-contracts for non-commercial traders, by almost 5,000. At the same time, they also closed Sell-contracts, which were reduced by 3,500. Thus, the total net position for this category increased by 8,500. The pound lost just around 140 points at the end of last week and the beginning of the new week, if you count from the last high. This is very small in the context of COT reports and the concept of a trend. This is not even a correction in the medium term.
The fundamental background for the GBP/USD pair was contradictory on Tuesday. For example, the unemployment rate in the UK unexpectedly turned out to be better than forecasts, 3.9%, that is, it did not change compared to the previous month. On the other hand, average wages declined, and the number of applications for unemployment benefits was nine times higher than the forecast. You can interpret these data in different ways, but the British pound did not grow very much after them. Just 30 or 40 points, the usual market noise. The UK will provide much more important information today, which we discussed a week ago. We are talking about the GDP report for the second quarter, which can show the economy contracting by a record 20%. We believe that if this report does not help the US currency, then it is not clear what can help it and pull down the pound/dollar pair. In addition, the change in the volume of industrial production in June will be announced on August 12. However, this report will clearly be in the shadow of the GDP report. The same applies to the report on US inflation. However, if the consumer price index accelerates and comes out better than forecasts, it could also help the dollar today.
There are two main options for the development of events on August 12:
1) Buyers continue to remain dominant, only taking a timeout in the last days. They did not manage to gain a foothold above the previous local high of 1.3169, so we recommend opening new purchases of the British currency, but not before breaking the 1.3169 level while aiming for the resistance level of 1.3275. In this case, the potential Take Profit is about 90 points.
2) Bears returned to the area below the Kijun-sen line with great difficulty. Thus, we can now consider trading for a fall, but we recommend waiting until the trend line and Senkou Span B (1.3010) line have been overcome, and only then should you open short positions with targets at 1.2956 and 1.2865. Potential Take Profit in this case is from 30 to 120 points. In any case, you should be careful with selling the pair. There are many factors working in favor of starting a decline, but the bears are still very weak.
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