Investing.com - The pound was steady close to one and a half month lows against the dollar on Monday after data showed that activity in the U.K. construction sector slowed in July.
GBP/USD was flat at 1.6821, not far from Friday’s lows of 1.6808, the weakest since June 12.
Cable is likely to find support at the 1.68 level and resistance at 1.6890, Friday’s high.
The U.K. construction purchasing managers’ index slowed to 62.4 from 62.6 in June, but was still slightly ahead of expectations for a reading of 62.0.
The overall pace of growth was the fastest since 2007, with housing activity still by far the best performing construction category. Last month’s increase in output was the sharpest for over a decade.
Sharp increases in overall construction activity also led to a new survey-record pace of job creation in the sector last month.
Demand for the dollar continued to be underpinned despite data on Friday showing that U.S. jobs growth slowed in July.
The U.S. economy added 209,000 jobs last month, below forecasts for jobs growth of 233,000.
Although it was the sixth successive month that the U.S. economy added more than 200,000 jobs, the unemployment rate unexpectedly ticked up to 6.2% from 6.1% in June. In addition, wage growth was flat, pointing to underlying slack in the economy.
The data prompted investors to trim back expectations on the timing of a possible rate hike by the Federal Reserve.
Elsewhere Monday, sterling was little changed at five week lows against the euro, with EUR/GBP trading at 0.7980.
The euro’s gains were held in check ahead of a policy meeting by the European Central Bank later in the week.
Data late last week showed that the annual rate of inflation in the euro area slowed to 0.4% last month from 0.5% in June, adding to pressure on the bank to implement measures to avert the risk of deflation in the region.