GBP/USD touches one-month peak around mid-1.2900s, seems poised to climb further

• A combination of supporting factors lifts GBP/USD to a one-month top on Monday. 
• Diminishing odds for a September BoE rate cut continues to underpin the Sterling.
• Dovish Fed expectations and a positive risk tone keep the USD bulls on the defensive.

The GBP/USD pair builds on last week's breakout momentum and climbs to over a one-month peak, around mid-1.2900s during the Asian session on Monday. The strong move up comes on the back of the recent solid bounce from the vicinity of a technically significant 200-day Simple Moving Average (SMA) and could be seen as a fresh trigger for bullish traders. 

The British Pound (GBP) continues to draw support from last week's relatively stronger UK macro data, which pointed to a still resilient economy and might have dashed hopes for another interest rate cut by the Bank of England (BoE) in September. The US Dollar (USD), on the other hand, languishes near its lowest level since January touched earlier this month amid dovish Federal Reserve (Fed) expectations and turns out to be another factor acting as a tailwind for the GBP/USD pair. 

Despite the fact that the markets have scaled back their bets for a more aggressive policy easing, investors seem convinced that the US central bank will begin its rate-cutting cycle in September. The expectations were reaffirmed by the latest comments by San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly, saying that the US central bank needs to take a gradual approach to lowering borrowing costs. This keeps the US Treasury bond yields depressed and weighs on the USD. 

Apart from this, the prevalent risk-on environment is further holding back traders from placing any bullish bets around the safe-haven Greenback. This, in turn, validates the near-term positive outlook for the GBP/USD pair and supports prospects for an extension of a nearly two-week-old uptrend amid the absence of relevant macro data either from the UK or the US. Traders, however, might await more cues about the Fed's rate-cut path before placing aggressive directional bets. 

Hence, the focus will remain on the release of the FOMC meeting minutes on Wednesday. This will be followed by the flash global PMIs on Thursday, which, along with Fed Chair Jerome Powell's speech at the Jackson Hole Symposium, will be looked upon for some meaningful impetus during the latter part of the week.