4-hour timeframe
The amplitude of the last 5 days (high-low): 77p - 137p - 79p - 96p - 72p.
Average amplitude for the last 5 days: 92p (117p).
The British pound sterling on the penultimate trading day of the week also went up against the US dollar, but to a lesser extent than the European currency. Thus, the conclusion is obvious: as before, the growth potential of the pound sterling is very limited. For reasons that have already been voiced repeatedly. This is an unresolved Brexit, and another vote of no confidence in Theresa May, this time from a whole group of parties of the British Parliament, and the postponing of the vote on the Brexit bill in January, which caused great displeasure among politicians, and the banal low probability of passing the bill. In general, the reasons for the lack of the pound's growth is enough. As before, we believe that the best that the pound can count on in the last days of 2018 and in early 2019 is the lack of new collapses and new lows. The British pound was not helped today by data on retail sales in the UK, which unexpectedly exceeded the forecast values. As well as the results of the meeting of the Bank of England, which were quite predictable - the rate remained unchanged, as was the planned amount of asset repurchases. The Bank of England did not hold a press conference, so there was no Mark Carney speech. There are no more important reports planned for today, but tomorrow a large package of macroeconomic reports from the United States and from the UK will be available to traders. Therefore, the last trading day of the week can be quite volatile.
Trading recommendations:
The GBP/USD pair has strengthened above the Ichimoku cloud. So technically we should consider long positions with the targets 1,2734 and 1,2766. However, as before, the pound is not prone to growth, so a turn down can happen at any time.
It is recommended to open Sell positions not earlier than fixing the price below the Kijun-sen line, and preferably from the level of 1.2582. In this case, the trend for the instrument will again change to a downward one.
In addition to the technical picture, fundamental data and the timing of their release should also be taken into account.
Explanation of illustration:
Ichimoku Indicator:
Tenkan-sen-red line.
Kijun-sen – blue line.
Senkou span a – light brown dotted line.
Senkou span B – light purple dotted line.
Chikou span – green line.
Bollinger Bands Indicator:
3 yellow lines.
MACD:
Red line and histogram with white bars in the indicator window.