GBP/USD is unlikely to move far ahead of Thursday’s monetary policy announcement by the Bank of England but the near-term outlook remains broadly positive and the pair looks to be heading towards 1.40 before, or perhaps soon after, the Bank’s monetary policy committee concludes its meeting.
That broadly positive outlook has been bolstered by the latest UK purchasing managers’ indexes. “June saw further strong growth in output across the UK private sector… The overall expansion in activity was only slightly slower than the record posted in May and among the fastest since the series began in January 1998,” commented IHS Markit and CIPS, which compile the data. “Marked increases in output were seen across both the manufacturing and service sectors as the economy continued to reopen following the Covid-19 lockdown earlier in the year,” they added.
