Pound Declines before Employment Report

The Great Britain pound declined against the other major currencies today on speculations that the employment report that is scheduled for the release today will show that the situation with labor market is worsening.

Despite the continued gains on the global stock markets and the elevated interest for the high-yielding assets, the pound sterling fell for the first day in five against the Japanese yen and continued its yesterday’s moderate decline against the U.S. dollar and the euro. The market participants expect an increased number of the jobless claims in U.K. from the report that’s released today at 9:30 GMT.

Bank of England Governor Mervyn King said during its late yesterday speech in London that the positive outlook for the consumer price growth may turn the monetary policy back to the bullish trend in the interest rate. Analysts saw this statement as a positive signal for the pound but it looks like the markets aren’t sure about the positive CPI numbers appearing on the horizon soon.

GBP/USD fell from 1.4055 to 1.3966 as of 7:49 GMT today. GBP/JPY went down from 138.73 to 137.66, while EUR/GBP rose from 0.9271 to 0.9305 today.