GBP/USD Forecast: Cable Slips Back Under 1.3400 as the Dollar Firms (15 July 2026)

The desk read

Cable’s soft CPI pop has faded and price has slipped back under the 1.3400 band, capped by the 200 day average at 1.3397 after breaking a rising wedge. The desk reads this as a dollar story as much as a sterling one: with the dollar firm again, the pound’s bounce has run into the wall. The video has the full walk through, levels and macro below.

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Macro backdrop, what is actually pricing

Confirmed facts. The June CPI released on 14 July cooled to 3.5 percent on the year, below the 3.8 percent the market expected and down from 4.2 percent in May, with the monthly figure at minus 0.4 percent and core at 2.6 percent on the year. The softening was led by fuel prices. On the same day, in his first testimony to Congress as Chair, Kevin Warsh pledged a Fed policy regime change to remove what he called the inflation tax, said the Committee has no tolerance for persistently elevated inflation, described the recent improvement as not mission accomplished, and criticised the 2020 average inflation framework as a mistake. He gave no hint on the July decision. Oil has surged, with WTI near 79.70 and Brent near 85.31, up more than 20 percent off the late June lows, as the United States reinstated its naval blockade of Iranian ports near the Strait of Hormuz and strait traffic collapsed. The US 10 year Treasury yield sits near 4.62 percent, close to two month highs, having only dipped slightly on the softer print.

The desk’s read. Here is the desk read, and it is interpretation, not fact. The market is trading an out of date number. June cooled because fuel prices fell hard when the ceasefire dropped oil roughly 25 percent, and fuel has since ripped straight back up as Hormuz reignited, so the disinflation impulse behind that CPI has already reversed. Warsh is hawkish, yields are elevated and biased higher, and oil is adding to the inflation risk, not subtracting from it. That is why the desk treats the dollar softness as a corrective pullback inside an intact, still dollar supportive structure rather than a top, and why the backdrop stays a headwind for gold and for the dollar pairs. Yields are the truer read of where rates are going than a single lagging CPI print, and they say the dollar has support to bounce once this pullback bottoms.

The levels that matter

The near term bias stays lower while price holds below the 200 day average at 1.3397. Only a clean reclaim of that level and 1.3455 changes the tone, and that likely needs the dollar to roll.

How the desk is reading the scenarios

While 1.3397 caps, the base case is a drift toward 1.3330 then 1.3290 and the 1.3270 pivot. A daily close back above 1.3397 and 1.3455 would put the yearly open at 1.3474 and 1.3522 back in play, and the backdrop is not delivering that catalyst yet. Levels, not trade ideas, and the risk is two sided.

What changed since the last update

In the desk’s last read cable had pushed above 1.3400 and was eyeing 1.3500. The soft CPI relief has since reversed, the pound is back inside the range under the 200 day average, and that failed break is the change.

Risk note

This is educational analysis, not financial advice and not a trade signal. The desk publishes named levels and scenarios, never entries, targets or stops. Markets are two sided and any level can fail, especially with live geopolitics in the tape. Manage your own risk.

Last checked: 15 July 2026, 08:00 UK. Levels cross referenced against TradingEconomics, Investing.com, FXStreet, Barchart, DailyForex and FXLeaders; macro against the BLS CPI release, Warsh’s 14 July testimony as reported by CNBC, Bloomberg and CNN, and oil and yields via CNBC, Bloomberg and Al Jazeera. More desk reads: KenMacro Macro Insights.

Educational analysis only. Past performance does not guarantee future results. Manage risk against your own portfolio.