The Pound is surrendering to pressure from the USD. Overview for 05.03.2019

On Tuesday morning, GBPUSD remains under pressure; the American currency is looking strong. 

The British Pound is trading downwards against the USD on Tuesday morning. The current quote for the instrument is 1.3166.

The USD is looking quite strong right now due to increase of 10-year bonds profitability and anticipation of eventual success of the trade talks between the USA and China. 

In the morning, the United Kingdom published the BRC Retail Sales Monitor, which lost 0.1% y/y after adding 1.8% y/y and against the expected reading of +0.1%, y/y. Is it possible to shift the blame on the Brexit? Doubtful. Most likely, British retailers raised prices earlier (it was seen in the inflation) and consumers decided to take a “let's wait and see” attitude in order to follow how things unfold and save money. In addition to that, the weather could really influence the consumer sentiment. It was quite warm in London and many people preferred to spend time without attending malls. 

In the afternoon, the United Kingdom will publish the FPC Meeting Minutes. As a rule, the Pound doesn’t react to this report. 

In the evening, the BoE Governor Mark Carney is going to speak. It’s not clear right now what he is going to speak about, but he might talk about the Brexit one way or another and the current state of the British economy. During his speech, GBPUSD may become more volatile, because the pair is very sensitive to everything that is relating to the Brexit.