(eToro Blog) While not as overly scrutinized say as the United State’s non-farms payroll report, the report of the U.K.’s claimant count rate was no doubt being closely monitored by Sterling watchers, such as OpenBook trader santosh, who also happens to be a U.K. resident. Trader santosh, with more than 5,500 followers and nearly a thousand copiers, has several long positions open in the GBP/USD pair, which was trading at 1.5361 just after the release of employment data from the U.K.’s Office of National Statistics (ONS). Generally, and specifically in the case of santosh, traders are currently bullish on the GBP/USD pair.

Trader santosh is targeting a broad range of prices, with the nearest at 1.5550. Trader santosh has not closed a profitable GBP/USD trade in nearly a week, so today could be a turning point for him. He also has two long positions in the Swiss Franc, one which crosses the Euro and the other the U.S. Dollar.

The ONS reported that the U.K. Claimant Count Rate for December was unchanged at 5%. The International Labor Organization (ILO) 3-month unemployment rate rose to 8.4% from 8.3%. Significantly beating the analysts forecasts, the claimant count change for the month of December rose to 1.2K from a downwardly revised (from 3.0K) to 0.2K; the consensus call was for a rise to 6.3K.

Trader santosh has been less active in trading the GBP/USD pair than he has historically been. Reviewing his trading history over the past month, it’s clear that the Swiss Franc also holds some appeal for him, more so against the U.S. Dollar than the pegged-Euro. He’s closed several trades over the past week in the USD/CHF pair with varying degrees of success; most recently yesterday a closed-out long with a 7.62% gain.

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