Investing.com - The pound remained moderately lower against the U.S. dollar on Thursday, after the release of mixed U.S. employment data, although a strong U.S. manufacturing report still supported the greenback.
GBP/USD pulled away from 1.6315, the pair's lowest since December 25, to hit 1.6338 during U.S. morning trade, still down 0.20%.
Cable was likely to find support at 1.6220, the low of December 17 and resistance at 1.6464, the high of January 14.
The greenback weakened mildly after the Department of Labor said the number of people filing continuing unemployment claims rose back over three million to 3.03 million, up from 2.85 million, in the week to January 4.
U.S. employment data is being closely watched by investors since the latest nonfarm payrolls report showed that the economy added just 74,000 news jobs last month, well below expectations for 196,000.
However, the number of initial jobless claims fell by 2,000 last week to a six-week low of 326,000.
A separate report showed that the annual rate of consumer inflation in the U.S. rose 1.5% in December, up from 1.2% in November. Consumer prices were 0.3% higher from a month earlier.
Core inflation rose 0.1% from a month earlier in December and was up 1.7% on a year-over-year basis.
In addition, the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia said that its manufacturing index improved to 9.4 this month from 6.4 in December. Analysts had expected a reading of 8.6. Indicators of future activity moderated, the report said, but continued to indicate general optimism about growth over the next six months.
Sterling was lower against the euro, with EUR/GBP adding 0.19% to 0.8326.
Also Thursday, European Central Bank governing council member Jens Weidmann played down fears over the threat of deflation in the currency bloc, saying the risk of broad deflation was limited.
The comments came as data confirmed the annual rate of consumer inflation remained well below the ECB’s 2% target in December.
Eurostat said consumer price inflation rose 0.8% on a year-over-year basis in December, in line with expectations and unchanged from a preliminary estimate.