GBP/USD reverses post-BoE gains to two-week high, offered around 1.3570 ahead of NFP

• GBP/USD witnessed some selling on Friday and snapped five days of the winning streak.
• A more hawkish BoE decision should act as a tailwind for sterling and limit the downside.
• Investors also seemed reluctant to place aggressive bets ahead of the key US jobs data.

The GBP/USD pair remained on the defensive through the first half of the European session and was last seen hovering near the lower end of its daily trading range, around the 1.3570 region.

Having struggled to find acceptance above the 1.3600 mark, the GBP/USD pair witnessed some selling on Friday and for now, seems to have snapped five successive days of the winning streak. The downtick could be solely attributed to some profit-taking following a strong runup to a two-week high, around the 1.3625-1.3630 area touched after the Bank of England decision on Thursday.

It is worth recalling that the BoE hiked its benchmark interest rate by 25 bps to 0.50%. This marked the first back-to-back raises since 2004 and was backed by a more hawkish vote distribution, which showed that four out of nine MPC members backed an aggressive 50 bps increase in borrowing costs. This, in turn, should underpin sterling and limit losses for the GBP/USD pair.

On the other hand, the US dollar languished near a two-and-half-week low touched earlier this Friday, though some follow-through uptick in the US Treasury bond yields extended some support. The USD price dynamics, however, did little to provide any meaningful impetus to the GBP/USD pair. Moreover, investors seemed reluctant ahead of the release of the US NFP report.

The closely-watched monthly jobs data, due later during the early North American session, is expected to show that the US economy added 150K jobs in January, down from 199K in the previous month. This, along with the US bond yields, will influence the USD price dynamics and provide some impetus to the GBP/USD pair, allowing traders to grab some short-term opportunities.

Technical levels to watch