GBPUSD plunged yesterday following hawkish comments from Jerome Powell. Fed Chair said that a quicker pace of tapering seems to be needed, cementing expectations ahead of the FOMC meeting on December 15. Moreover, Powell said that inflation should no longer be considered transitory - a major shift in narrative from Fed head. USD strengthened against other major currencies, including the British pound. While the emergence of Omicron is a source of concern, traders on the interest rate derivatives markets do not seem to be puzzled. BoE rate hike odds barely moved and still point to the first 25 basis points rate hike in March 2022. BoE Governor Bailey is set to speak later today at 2:00 pm GMT but the speech will be related to insurance regulations rather than monetary policy. The pair may also move around 1:15 pm GMT today as ADP employment report release is likely to trigger moves on USD-side.
Taking a technical look at the GBPUSD chart at H1 we can see that the pair has been trading in a downward move for some time. However, the pair is recovering from a strong sell-off that took place on Friday last week. Key resistance zone can be found in the 1.3350-1.3360 area. The area is marked with the upper limit of the Overbalance, 50% retracement, previous price reactions as well as 200-period EMA. A break above this area would invalidate the bearish scenario and make the outlook more bullish. A failure to break above could pave the way for a pullback towards recent lows.
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Source: xStation5
