Pound Sterling ticks up against US Dollar in countdown to US NFP

The Pound Sterling trades marginally higher to near 1.3365 against the US Dollar (USD) during the Asian trading session on Friday. The GBP/USD pair edges up as the US Dollar ticks down ahead of the United States (US) Nonfarm Payrolls (NFP) data for February, which will be published at 13:30 GMT.

As of writing, the US Dollar Index (DXY), which tracks the Greenback’s value against six major currencies, trades 0.1% down around 99.00.

The impact of the US official employment data is expected to be significant on the Federal Reserve’s (Fed) monetary policy outlook as traders trimmed dovish bets for the July policy meeting after the release of the upbeat ADP Employment data for February on Wednesday.

The CME FedWatch tool shows that the odds of the Fed holding interest rates steady in the July policy meeting have increased to 47.4% from 33.4% seen a week before.

The US NFP report is expected to show that employers hired 59K fresh workers, significantly lower than 130K in January. The Unemployment Rate is seen steady at 4.3%.

Broadly, the risk-off market sentiment amid the war in the Middle East involving the US, Israel, and Iran continues to support the US Dollar.

On the United Kingdom (UK) front, market experts start doubting that the Bank of England (BoE) will cut interest rates in the policy meeting on March 19, as the Middle East conflict has boosted energy prices, a scenario that will likely prompt inflationary pressures further. Given that the UK inflation has been well above the 2% target, a further increase in price pressures would discourage BoE officials from easing monetary conditions.

“Unless tensions in the Middle East swiftly de-escalate, we doubt the Bank will cut rates on March 19 as we previously thought,” analysts at Capital Economics said, Reuters reported.