British Pound 6% Down in 60 Seconds

Remember the famous movie "Gone in 60 seconds"? Well, a lot of traders and investors woke up this morning in unbelief seeing that the British Pound lost 6% of its value in less than 60 seconds in between the US and Asian session.

The Sterling is down against all its peers and what's even more mind boggling is the cause of this effect. Seemingly, there was nothing to cause the sell off of this currency and according to some analysts, the nosedive is due to the "fat-finger" error. While this might be true, other argue that big players are eating up all the stops considering how many people anticipated the latest lows in the GBP pairs and waited to go long on them.

In numbers, GBP/USD is down from 1.2622 to 1.1919, currently trading at 1.2466.
GBP/JPY is down from 131.24 to 122.38, currently trading at 129.37.
Other GBP pairs are just as affected as high volatility continues to drive the currency markets to the extremes.

NFP and jobs data are scheduled for 8:30 Eastern today and that can only add more uncertainty in the already over saturated Friday market.


To describe the havoc, here is a GBP/USD 1min chart: