GBP/USD Forecast: Bearish Bias Remains, UK Services PMI Eyed For Fresh Impetus

The GBP/USD pair formed a temporary low last week and rebounded from the 1.3700 neighborhood. On Friday, the UK PM Theresa May's landmark Brexit speech did little to influence the British Pound, with some follow-through US Dollar weakness was seen lending some support. Fears over a global trade war, after the US President Donald Trump announced to impose tariffs on steel and aluminium, continued prompting some USD selling and turned out to be the only factor behind the pair's modest uptick. 

The up-move, however, lacked any strong follow-through traction and the pair remained capped below 50-day SMA at the start of a new week, which features important market moving economic releases from the US and the UK. A busy week kicks off with the release of UK services PMI and the US ISM non-manufacturing PMI on Monday, but the key focus would be on Friday's keenly watched US monthly jobs report (NFP). 

From a technical perspective, the pair maintains a bearish bias on short-term charts and a daily close below 1.3760 horizontal support would mark breakdown from a short-term descending triangular formation. On a sustained weakness below the mentioned support should now turn the pair vulnerable to slide below the 1.3700 handle and head toward testing an intermediate support near mid-1.3600s en-route the 1.3600 round figure mark. 

On the upside, any meaningful up-move beyond the 1.3800 handle is likely to confront some fresh supply at 50-day SMA, currently near the 1.3835-40 region, above which a bout of short-covering could lift the pair back toward reclaiming the 1.3900 handle. Any subsequent up-move might continue to boost the pair in the near-term but is likely to be capped at the descending triangle resistance near the key 1.40 psychological mark.