GBP/USD on session highs as UK sales data looms at 6am GMT

Shortly, at 6am GMT the UK will release their July retail sales data. As noted here earlier this morning, the Pound has been performing well against all its peers leading into this release. That is still the case right now too. As also explained, this could be partly due to what is expected here- much better data than seen in June. Sales that month fell back by 1.2%. They are expected to rise by 0.6% in July. The annualised core rate fell by 0.8% in June, it is expected to bounce back to 1.4% last month. Now, there is an argument to suggest that such a positive outcome is already priced into the Pound ahead of this data. Well, that might be the case, but quite often when we see what is clearly GBP demand into such a report, it has a rather canny potential to emerge even better than forecasts. You can make of that statement what you will, but we shall see  how this data emerges shortly. The GBP/USD is currently trading at 1.2877