The pair closed in NY Thursday at $1.7101 after rate had seen lows of $1.7085 during the NY session, as markets reacted to reported shooting down of a Malaysian Airways plan in Ukraine, before recovering to $1.7115 then drifted off into the close. This drift lower continued into early Asia allowing rate to retest that NY low, extending the base to $1.7084 before it picked up fresh demand into the Asian afternoon and recovered back to the $1.7100 ahead of the European open. Euro-sterling, which had marked fresh 21-mth lows of stg0.7889 in early European dealing spent the rest of the day paring losses with rate edging up to stg0.79145. Asia consolidated this recovery between stg0.7909/15, the rate capped by its recent broken low of stg0.7915(Jul7, broken Jul15). Traders focus on the 21-dma at $1.7097, one noting that the rate has not closed below this level since June. A close below, following muted gains seen after the release of strong CPI data, could prompt further paring of cable longs. However, short euro-sterling is still favoured and traders would look to fade rallies in the cross, initially at stg0.7915 then into stg0.7980. Cable support $1.7085/80 ahead of $1.7060/55. Resistance $1.7140/50.
