Investing.com - The pound remained higher against the U.S. dollar on Thursday, as the release of strong U.S. economic reports lent support to market sentiment, despite disappointing Chinese data published earlier in the session.
GBP/USD hit 1.6717 during U.S. morning trade, the pair's highest since March 10; the pair subsequently consolidated at 1.6687, gaining 0.41%.
Cable was likely to find support at 1.6568, Wednesday's low and resistance at 1.6785, the high of March 7.
The Commerce Department reported that retail sales rose 0.3% in February, ending two months of declines. Market expectations had been for an increase of 0.2%.
Core retail sales, which exclude automobile sales, also rose 0.2% last month, ahead of expectations for a 0.3% rise.
Separately, the Department of Labor said the number of people filing new claims for unemployment benefits fell by 9,000 to a three month low of 315,000 last week, from the previous week’s revised total of 324,000.
Analysts had expected initial jobless claims to rise by 6,000 last week.
Market sentiment had weakened earlier, after data showed that Chinese industrial production rose 8.6% in the first two months of 2014, missing market expectations for an increase of 9.5%, while Chinese retail sales rose by a smaller-than-forecast 11.8% in the same period.
Investors were also warry as tensions between Russia and the West escalated ahead of Sunday's referendum in Ukraine’s Crimea region, now controlled by pro-Russian forces, on whether citizens want to join Russia.
Sterling was higher against the euro, with EUR/GBP slipping 0.22% to 0.8348.