
GBP/USD Trades Steady After BOE Keeps Rates on Hold
On the day of Brexit, the Pound is trading steady against the US dollar after making a gain in the previous session following the BOE’s decision to hold interest rates steady. At the time of writing, GBP/USD is trading at around 1.309.
On Thursday, the BOE MPC voted to keep rates steady even as markets anticipated a possible rate cut announcement on the back of recent weak economic data releases. However, the Bank of England slashed Britain’s economic growth forecasts for this year down to 0.8% this year from 1.3% in 2019, but expects growth to pick up to 1.5% in 2021.
GBP/USD is also holding steady after gaining around 0.5% following the release of a weak GDP report from the US on Thursday. The latest GDP report revealed that the US economy managed to grow at 2.3% in 2019 and by 2.1% in Q4 2019, lower than the 2.9% growth seen in 2018 and well below the 3% target set by the Trump administration.