Price was going as projected in our Mar 7 Article, and as of this writing, we have started deploying our range strategy for the sterling. We have been with the bears and the bulls, not favoring any camp, though we must say trading range market is one of the most difficult endeavors, and sterling is currently one of the forex pairs that offers you to hone your range trading skills, as the Brexit issue is in the limbo.
Recent polls by Opinium for the Sunday's Observer newspaper showed that 43% support for the Kingdom to leave the European Union, ahead of the 39% support for staying in the world's largest economic bloc. The only thing that supports the GBP/USD exchange rate from falling faster right now, is that the demand for the greenback is not that strong either, due to Fed's recent rate hike indecision, hence the range market.
Looking at the recent CoT report for the sterling futures contract, speculators still bearish with net short increased by 1.2% for June delivery.
On the institutional side, we see Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) standing firm in their bearish view as UK moves into the June 23 referendum, shorting sterling from the $1.4320 level targeting $1.35 level. Of the 42 instituitions surveyed, 27 called for a lower sterling than what it is now, around 1.4150 as of this writing, and 15 more are not that far off, with BNP Paribas (PA:BNPP) being the most bullish predicting $1.48 in a month time.
Halal Traders will continue deploying our range strategy until new trend develops.