Investing.com - The pound was almost unchanged against the U.S. dollar on Monday, hovering close to a 17-month low as a French debt auction failed to ease concerns over the financial crisis in the euro zone.
GBP/USD hit 1.5278 during U.S. morning trade, the daily low; the pair subsequently consolidated at 1.5312, edging down 0.03%.
Cable was likely to find support at 1.5232, the low of January 13 and a 17-month low and resistance at 1.5366, the high of January 12.
France sold EUR8.5 billion of short-term government debt earlier, just shy of the targeted amount of EUR8.7 billion, in an auction which met with weak investor demand and slightly higher yields.
Earlier Monday, ratings agency Moody’s said it was maintaining France’s triple-A rating and stable outlook for its debt for now, but added that it would update markets in the first quarter of 2012.
The announcement came after Standard & Poor’s cut France’s triple-A rating by one notch on Friday and said it would decide shortly whether to downgrade the triple-A rating on the euro zone's bailout fund, the European Financial Stability Facility.
S&P also downgraded eight other euro zone sovereigns, including Italy, Spain, Cyprus and Portugal.
Reacting to the downgrades earlier, U.K. Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne said that the euro zone needs to show that it can stand behind the shared currency and resolve Greece’s debt crisis.
Also Monday, a report by Rightmove showed earlier that house price inflation declined 0.8% in January, after a 2.7% fall the previous month.
Elsewhere, the pound was lower against the euro with EUR/GBP easing down 0.04%, to hit 0.8273.
Markets in the U.S. were to remain closed for Martin Luther King Day.
GBP/USD hit 1.5278 during U.S. morning trade, the daily low; the pair subsequently consolidated at 1.5312, edging down 0.03%.
Cable was likely to find support at 1.5232, the low of January 13 and a 17-month low and resistance at 1.5366, the high of January 12.
France sold EUR8.5 billion of short-term government debt earlier, just shy of the targeted amount of EUR8.7 billion, in an auction which met with weak investor demand and slightly higher yields.
Earlier Monday, ratings agency Moody’s said it was maintaining France’s triple-A rating and stable outlook for its debt for now, but added that it would update markets in the first quarter of 2012.
The announcement came after Standard & Poor’s cut France’s triple-A rating by one notch on Friday and said it would decide shortly whether to downgrade the triple-A rating on the euro zone's bailout fund, the European Financial Stability Facility.
S&P also downgraded eight other euro zone sovereigns, including Italy, Spain, Cyprus and Portugal.
Reacting to the downgrades earlier, U.K. Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne said that the euro zone needs to show that it can stand behind the shared currency and resolve Greece’s debt crisis.
Also Monday, a report by Rightmove showed earlier that house price inflation declined 0.8% in January, after a 2.7% fall the previous month.
Elsewhere, the pound was lower against the euro with EUR/GBP easing down 0.04%, to hit 0.8273.
Markets in the U.S. were to remain closed for Martin Luther King Day.