Photo by Colin Watts on Unsplash 
 

GBP/USD cut off a four-day losing streak on Thursday, catching a thin technical bounce from the 1.3050 region. Cable price action is still caught on the bearish side of long-term moving averages, but investors are taking a breather ahead of Friday’s data docket.

US Nonfarm Payrolls (NFP) jobs data from September was released on Thursday, much later than usual thanks to the US government’s latest funding shutdown. The data came in stronger than expected, showing 119K net job gains through September, well above the expected 50K. The upswing in NFP jobs gains functionally closes the door on a Federal Reserve (Fed) interest rate cut on December 10, which would have required stronger signs of labor market deterioration.

An otherwise one-sided trading week for GBP/USD traders will round things out with a fresh batch of UK Retail Sales data at 07:00 GMT. Monthly Retail Sales figures are expected to ease back again in October, keeping in-line with the UK’s recent habit of missing the mark on economic data releases.

UK S&P Global Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) activity survey results will follow up at 09:30 GMT. UK PMIs for both the Manufacturing and Services components are expected to tick lower as economic activity struggles on within Europe’s largest non-EU economy.

US S&P Global PMI data will round out the week at 14:45 GMT. Services PMI data is expected to moderate and hold flat near 54.8, while Manufacturing activity expectations are forecast to decline to 52.0 from 52.5.

The latest University of Michigan (UoM) Consumer Expectations and Sentiment Indexes will also get an update at 15:00 GMT on Friday. Things have been not-great on the consumer sentiment side of the American economic data docket, and the trend is more or less expected to continue through November.

GBP/USD daily chart
 

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