GBP/USD eases from tops, retreats to mid-1.4000s

   •  Goodish pickup in the US bond yields helps revive USD demand.
   •  Risk-off mood provides an additional boost to the buck’s safe-haven appeal.
   •  Investors look forward to this week’s important releases for fresh impetus.

The GBP/USD pair trimmed a major part of its early gains and has now retreated around 35-40 pips from an intraday high level of 1.4078.

A modest US Dollar rebound, backed by a goodish pickup in the US Treasury bond yields, kept a lid on the pair's early up-move and prompted some fresh selling at higher levels. 

This coupled with a sharp fall in the US equity markets provided an additional boost to the greenback's safe-haven appeal against the British Pound and further collaborated to the pair's retracement back below mid-1.4000s.

Despite a pull-back, the pair has managed to hold with some gains for the second consecutive session and was being supported by a larger than expected fall in the US ISM manufacturing PMI for March, coming in at 59.3 as against 60.0 expected and 60.8 previous.

Moving ahead, investors this week will confront a slew of important market moving economic releases, including the keenly watched US monthly jobs report (NFP), which might turn out to be a key determinant of the pair's near-term trajectory.

Technical levels to watch

Any subsequent retracement is likely to find support near the 1.4015 level, below which the pair is likely to break below the key 1.40 psychological mark and head towards testing the 1.3965 horizontal support.

On the flip side, momentum above the 1.4075-80 region could get extended beyond the 1.4100 handle but now seems to be capped at an ascending trend-channel support break-point turned resistance near the 1.4120 level.