Investing.com - The pound held steady against the pound in choppy trade on Monday, as weak Chinese economic data weighed on demand for the risk-related sterling.
GBP/USD hit 1.6584 during U.S. morning trade, the pair's lowest since February 12; the pair subsequently consolidated at 1.6612, easing 0.01%.
Cable was likely to find support at 1.6526, the low of January 29 and resistance at 1.6725, the high of February 21.
Markets were jittery after data on Monday showed that Chinese home prices fell for the first time in 14 months in January. The data added to fears that the world’s second largest economy is slowing as the government tries to tackle bad loans and weak lenders.
The pound fell against the dollar on Friday after data showed that U.K. retail sales fell by a larger-than-forecast 1.5% in January, following strong retail sales growth of 2.5% in December.
The data was seen as reinforcing the view that the Bank of England will keep rates on hold for some time, coming after an unexpected uptick in the U.K. unemployment rate earlier in the week.
Sterling was fractionally higher against the euro, with EUR/GBP edging down 0.08% to 0.8259.
Investors shrugged off data earlier showing that Germany’s Ifo business climate index rose by the most in over two-and-a-half years in February.
German research institute Ifo said its business climate index came in at 111.3 in February, the highest level since mid-2011, up from 110.6 in January. Analysts had expected an unchanged reading.
A separate report showed that the annual rate of euro zone inflation came in at 0.8% in January, unchanged from the previous month and slightly higher than the preliminary estimate for 0.7%. It was still well below the European Central Bank’s target of 2% inflation.
Consumer prices slumped 1.1% from a month earlier, in line with forecasts.