UK GDP and MPC Meeting Minutes Vote Count - Lower deviation on GDP but no votes for raising APF leads to GBPUSD rally after sell-the-rumor move into the release.

This morning at 9:30 GMT (4:30 EST) the Preliminary GDP figures for Q4 2011 were released out of the UK. This came along-side the vote count of the MPC's January meeting, which complicated things a bit. There had been much talk of lower GDP figures for Q4 from various think tanks and the Chancellor of the Exchequer himself George Osborne. The GBPUSD forex pair had been near its highs for the week around 1.5615 as the European Session began, so no hint of selling this rumor of a lower print on GDP until about 15 minutes after the 8am London open, finally cable started to move down. Sometimes rumor lead moves can start the day before, but in this case it was just an hour or so before. Cable sold off 70 pips into the release and when the GDP did come out lower there was a slight further tick down for a lower low.

However the MPC Meeting Minutes Vote Count for the January Interest Rate Decision was released at the same time. Many are expecting the BOE to raise the APF (Asset Purchase Facility - the BOE'f name for QE or Quantitative Easing) even more as soon as February. However when the vote count came in unanimously at 9-0 against raising APF, this was bullish, even the arch-Dove Posen did not vote for it, although he has been talking about it. Raising APF is usually bearish for the GBPUSD because basically the bank is printing money, thus creating a larger supply of it and more supply means that its value is lower. However longer term raising APF can be bullish as it will stimulate the economy. When the BOE raised the APF on October 6th by 75 Billion, GBPUSD sold off quite hard to 1.5270, but then turned around and rallied non-stop thru-out October to 1.6165 on October 27th....anyway here are the Figures:

UK GDP (QoQ)
EStimates- Median: -0.1% Average: -0.1% Range: -0.7% to +0.2%
Actual: -0.2% Prior: +0.6% No Revision
UK GBP (YoY)
EStimates- Median: +0.8% Average: +0.8% Range: +0.2% to +1.1%
Actual: +0.8% Prior: +0.5% No Revision

Bank of England MPC Vote Count :
Unanimous to hold Rates Steady 0.5%
Unanimous to hold APF STeady at 275B


Here is the 5 second chart of the GBPUSD, you can see how initially price action was whippy and indecisive:

Here is the 1 minute chart of GBPUSD which shows the pair resolving higher after this intial wiggle (whippy on 5 second is a wiggle on the 1 minute), back to the 1.5600 round figure:

This 5 minute chart of GBPUSD shows the sell-off on the pair leading into the news starting from 8:15 GMT. This came off the 38% fibonacci retracement of the October 6th low of 1.5270 to the October 27th high of 1.6165 @ 1.5613:

This Daily Chart shows the fibonacci better: