Investing.com - The pound fell to fresh 20-month lows against the U.S. dollar on Friday, as the greenback recovered from the previous session's disappointing U.S. retail sales report and as investors eyed additional U.S. data to be released later in the day.
GBP/USD hit 1.4845 during European morning trade, the pair's lowest since July 2013; the pair subsequently consolidated at 1.4868, slipping 0.09%.
Cable was likely to find support at 1.4811 and resistance at 1.5026, Thursday's high.
The dollar recovered from Thursday's report from the U.S. Commerce Department showing that retail sales fell 0.6% in February, the third consecutive monthly decline. Economists had forecast in increase of 0.3%.
At the same time the Labor Department reported that the number people filing new claims for unemployment benefits fell by 36,000 to 289,000 last week, indicating that the recovery in the labor market is continuing to strengthen.
The pound had found some support on Thursday after the U.K. Office for National Statistics said the country's goods trade deficit narrowed to £8.41 billion in January from £9.93 billion in December, whose figure was revised from a previously estimated deficit of £10.15 billion.
Economists had expected the goods trade deficit to narrow to £9.7 billion in January.
Sterling was higher against the euro, with EUR/GBP edging down 0.13% to 0.7137.
Later in the day, the U.S. was to release data on producer prices and consumer sentiment.