Investing.com - The pound edged higher against the U.S. dollar on Thursday, as market sentiment slightly improved ahead of the European Central Bank's upcoming policy statement.
GBP/USD hit 1.5173 during European morning trade, the session high; the pair subsequently consolidated at 1.5169, adding 0.17%.
Cable was likely to find support at 1.5055, the low of January 20 and resistance at 1.5269, the high of January 15.
Investors were waiting to see if the ECB would embark on a large scale quantitative easing program later in the day.
Earlier Thursday, the Office for National Statistics said that U.K. public sector net borrowing rose to £12.47 billion last month from a revised £11.73 billion in November, whose figure was revised from a previously estimated £13.41 billion.
Analysts had expected public sector net borrowing to decline to £9.7 billion in December.
The pound had weakened on Wednesday after the minutes of the Bank of England's January policy meeting showed that members voted unanimously to keep the asset puschase facility program on hold.
Members also voted unanimously for the first time in five months to keep interest rates unchanged at a record-low 0.5%.
Markets seemed to shrug off data on Wednesday showing that the U.K. unemployment rate dipped to 5.8% in the three months to November from 6.0% in the previous three month-period.
The report also showed that the claimant count fell by 29,700 last month, compared to expectations for a decline of 25,000 people.
Sterling was also higher against the euro, with EUR/GBP slipping 0.14% to 0.7657.
Later in the day, the U.S. was to release data on initial jobless claims.