British Pound (FXB) Giving Up Gains

The British Pound (GBP) tumbled during today's European and early US trading sessions, giving back all of yesterday's gains across the board, as January job numbers disappointed markets. After yesterday's higher than expected inflation data, investors tuned bullish on a possible rate hike by the Bank of England, sending the British currency to its weekly highs. As it turned out today, however, it was premature, as the jobless claims for the month of January in British economy showed an unexpected gain for 2.4K instead of the general expectation of a decline for 3K. Consumer confidence came out slightly lower as well at 47 vs. 50 expected. At the same time, today's Bank of England inflation report showed an annualized inflation of 1.7% in two years, thus pouring some cold water on yesterday's bullishness over a rate hike. The BoE Governor King himself mentioned that the talk of an earlier rate hike has no serious ground. As a result, The British currency fell against all of its major counterparts, including the US Dollar (USD), the Euro (EUR) and the Japanese Yen (JPY). The GBP/USD fell from 1.6180s all the way to 1.5984 and currently is struggling right around the 1.60 level. The EUR/GBP meanwhile, jumped from 0.8360s to 0.8425 and the GBP/JPY currency pair fell from this year's high of 135.45 to 134.20s where it currently trades.