Investing.com - The pound was almost unchanged against the U.S. dollar on Friday, hovering near two-month highs as markets awaited the release of U.S. economic reports later in the day.
GBP/USD hit 1.6766 during European morning trade, the session low; the pair subsequently consolidated at 1.6776, easing 0.05%.
Cable was likely to find support at 1.6658, the low of March 5 and short-term resistance at 1.6820, Thursday's high.
Market participants were eyeing the release of U.S. data later in the trading session for further indications of the strength of the country's economic recovery, after data on Thursday showed that U.S. jobless claims dropped more-than-expected last week.
The Labor Department reported that the number of individuals filing for initial jobless benefits in the week ending April 4 fell by 30,000 to a seasonally adjusted 300,000 from the previous week’s upwardly revised total of 332,000.
Analysts had expected jobless claims to decline to 320,000.
Continuing jobless claims declined to 2.77 million, the lowest since January 2008.
The pound came under mild selling pressure on Thursday, after the Bank of England said it was maintaining the benchmark interest rate at 0.50%, in a widely anticipated move.
The bank also said it was to maintain the stock of asset purchases financed by the issuance of central bank reserves at £375 billion.
Sterling was lower against the euro, with EUR/GBP adding 0.10% to 0.8283.
Later in the day, the U.S. was to release data on producer price inflation, as well as the preliminary report on the University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment index.