GBP/USD eases from highs, back below 1.34 handle ahead of Carney

   •  Fails to sustain early up-move beyond 1.34 mark despite weaker USD.
   •  Carney’s testimony eyed for some trading impetus ahead of US data.

The GBP/USD pair quickly retreated around 20-25 pips from session tops but has still managed to hold with modest gains for the third consecutive session. 

The news that the US Senate approved the tax bill, sending it to the House of Representatives for the second approval, did little to revive US Dollar demand helped the pair to bounce off the 1.3380-75 region. 

Meanwhile, a lot of formal Brexit headlines and comments over the UK economy provided some momentum through the mid-European session, within a narrow trading range around the 1.3400 handle. 

Even today's mostly in-line UK CBI realized sales, coming in at 20 for December as against previous month's reading of 26, did little to influence a mildly positive trading sentiment around the major. 

Despite a good two-way move, the pair still seemed lacking any firm directional bias as investors now look forward to the BOE Governor Carney’s testimony on the Financial Stability Report before the Treasury Select Committee. 

From the US, the release of existing home sales data might also provide some short-term trading impetus during the early NA session.

Technical outlook

Mario Blascak, European Chief Analyst at FXStreet writes: "The technical oscillators are pretty neutral with Relative Strength Index on the 4-hour chart just above 50 neutral line and Momentum indicator in a positive territory, but pointing downwards. Slow Stochastics moved from the Overbought condition higher on Monday and now stands at above 50 points pointing upwards."

"The crossover of 20-period and 50-period simple moving average could be an indication of the uptrend with price action heading towards $1.3420-$1.3450$-$1.3500 and $1.3550" he further added.