GBP/USD refresh daily tops, crucial House vote awaited

The greenback remained on the back-foot against its British counterpart, with the GBP/USD pair gaining fresh traction and refreshing daily tops near 1.2525-30 band.  

An unexpected rise in the initial weekly jobless claims data from the US seems to have been negated by better-than-expected new home sales data and has failed to provide any bullish impetus to the greenback. In fact, the key US Dollar Index was seen hovering around multi-week lows near mid-99.00s and assisting the pair to hold on to upbeat UK retail sales data-led gains to fresh monthly tops. 

Ahead of an important vote on Trump's health-care bill, cautious environment also seems to have held investors from initiating any long-dollar positions. A failure to pass the bill, or a delay, would raise skepticism over Trump's ability to deliver on his promised tax cuts and infrastructure spending, and would eventually trigger a fresh leg of depreciating move for the greenback. 

30-40 Republicans likely to vote 'no' on healthcare bill - MSNBC

From technical perspective, the pair seems to have cleared the key 1.2500 psychological mark hurdle and hence, seems all set to extend the recent bullish trajectory.

Technical levels to watch

Momentum above session high resistance near 1.2525 level is likely to get extended towards 1.2555-60 horizontal hurdle, above which the pair should aim towards reclaiming the 1.2600 handle.

On the downside, retracement back below 1.25 mark now seems to find immediate support near 1.2480 level and only a decisive break below this support would negate near-term bullish bias and trigger a near-term corrective slide back towards 100-day SMA strong resistance, now turned important support near 1.2410 region.