Investing.com - The pound fell to one-month lows against the U.S. dollar on Friday, as demand for the greenback strengthened ahead of a highly-anticipated report on U.S. employment and as investors shrugged off Thursday's downbeat U.S. jobless claims data.
GBP/USD hit 1.5201 during European morning trade, the pair's lowest since February 10; the pair subsequently consolidated at 1.5192, shedding 0.31%.
Cable was likely to find support at 1.5134, the low of February 4 and resistance at 1.5300, the high of February 11.
The dollar showed little reaction to data on Thursday showing that the number of Americans who filed for unemployment assistance rose by 7,000 to 320,000 last week from the previous week’s total of 313,000.
Another report showed that U.S. factory orders slipped 0.2% in January, compared to expectations for a 0.2% rise. December's figure was revised to a 3.5% decline from a previously estimated 3.4% drop.
Also Thursday, the Bank of England left interest rates unchanged at their current record low of 0.50%, where they have been since March 2009. The central bank also maintained the stock of asset purchases financed by the issuance of central bank reserves at £375 billion.
Sterling was higher against the euro, with EUR/GBP slipping 0.18% to 0.7222.
Later in the day, the U.S. was to release the closely watched government report on nonfarm payrolls, the unemployment rate and average earnings.