Investing.com - The pound held steady against the U.S. dollar on Monday, hovering near one-month lows as Friday's upbeat U.S. data continued to support the greenback and concerns over tensions in the Gaza Strip and Ukraine still weighed.
GBP/USD hit 1.6985 during European morning trade, the session high; the pair subsequently consolidated at 1.6979, inching up 0.02%.
Cable was likely to find support at 1.6924, the low of June 18 and resistance at 1.7053, the high of July 24.
The greenback remained supported by better than expected data on U.S. durable goods orders for June.
The Commerce Department on Friday reported a rise of 0.7% in orders of long lasting goods such as machinery and electronic products, compared to forecasts of 0.5%.
The pound showed little reaction to data on Friday confirming that the U.K. economy grew 0.8% in the second quarter of 2014 and expanded by 3.1% on a year-over-year basis.
Investors still remained cautious after Hamas Islamist militants in Gaza said on Sunday that they backed a 24-hour humanitarian truce in light of the Muslim holiday Eid al-Fitr.
Meanwhile, the European Union agreed to impose economic sanctions against Russia for its role in the Ukraine crisis. Moscow reacted to the sanctions by warning that they would hamper cooperation on global security issues.
Sterling was little changed against the euro, with EUR/GBP easing up 0.04% to 0.7915.
Later in the day, the U.S. was to release data on pending home sales.