Investing.com - The pound trimmed gains against the U.S. dollar on Thursday, after downbeat U.S. data but remained with close distance of 32-month highs as the Bank of England revised up its forecast for growth this year.
GBP/USD pulled away from 1.6673, the pair's highest since May 2011, to hit 1.6632 during U.S. morning trade, still up 0.21%.
Cable was likely to find support at 1.6550 and near-term resistance at 1.6667, the high of January 24 and the highest since May 2011.
The Commerce Department said that U.S. retail sales fell 0.4% last month, confounding expectations for a 0.3% increase. December’s figure was revised down to a decline of 0.1% from a previously reported 0.2% increase.
Core retail sales were flat in January, compared to expectations for a 0.1% rise.
Meanwhile, the Department of Labor reported that the number of people who filed for unemployment assistance in the U.S. last week rose by 8,000 to 339,000 from the previous week’s total of 331,000.
Analysts had expected jobless claims to fall by 1,000.
Meanwhile, the pound remained supported after the BoE raised its U.K. economic growth forecast for 2014 to 3.4% from 2.8% on Wednesday.
The bank also updated its forward guidance on bank rates, saying it will not raise rates until the spare capacity in the U.K. economy has been fully absorbed, which it does not see happening until 2015.
Sterling was lower against the euro, with EUR/GBP gaining 0.43% to 0.8225.