British pound is trading downside against the greenback during Asian Thursday trading session. Brexit worries, better than expected Initial Jobless claims and concerns over the omicron variant favors the safe haven US dollar and weighs on the pound.

Talking about the Brexit Saga, Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney crossed wires while signaling no Brexit deal between the European Union (EU) and the UK over the Northern Ireland (NI) protocol during 2021. However, Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis said he is optimistic to reach a deal but also cited the odds of triggering Article 16.

While the EU-UK Brexit deal is in limbo, the US-UK post-Brexit trade talks are also fragile as both the nations recently jostled over Washington’s failure to remove tariffs on UK steel and aluminum.

On the other hand, On Wednesday, two Fed policymakers favor a fast bond taper. In an appearance at the Congress, Fed’s Chair Powell reiterated that a faster wind-down of the QE’s program is necessary so that the Fed could tame inflationary pressures. Later on, Cleveland Fed President Loretta Mester expressed that a more rapid taper would be like “buying insurance” in the necessity of hiking rates as need it.

Elsewhere, better than expected Initial Jobless claims also favored the USD. Initial Jobless Claims for the week ending on November 26 rose to 222K which is better than the 240K forecasted, while the Continuing Jobless Claims for the week ending on November 18 rose to 1.956M which is lower than 2M for the first time, since March 2020.

Concerns about the new variant of the coronavirus eased after the World Health Organization (WHO) official said that some of the early indications are that most Omicron cases are mild. This, in turn, was seen as a key factor that undermined the safe-haven USD.

GBP/USD 4 Hour Chart:

Support: 1.3240 (S1), 1.3205 (S2), 1.3149 (S3).

Resistance: 1.3330 (R1), 1.3386 (R2), 1.3421 (R3).

All the catalysts favors the safe haven US dollar against the Britain Pound, we expect a bearish trend for GBP/USD.