Sterling is also losing ground from its highs on a trade-weighted basis

Cable tested a low of 1.3728 earlier today, as the dollar continues to gain further as risk assets take a turn for the worse on the day.

Though the movement in the FX market remains relatively mild to say the least, with the Japanese yen almost unchanged against the other major pairs as well - besides the aussie and loonie.

But the recent decline in cable has as much to do with the dollar strength as it has to do with the sterling's own demise. On a trade-weighted basis, sterling is now down to levels similar to that of mid-January.

If you reflect that on cable, we see a similar kind of movement as well:

After breaking below the February lows, it's a slippery slope now for cable. And if you look at it whichever way, there's not much reprieve coming from anywhere apart from the case of BOE rate hikes.

First, you have Brexit news starting to weigh in again after going through January with almost no headlines of note. The Irish border remains a major issue to be resolved, and at the moment the EU and the UK are at a negotiation deadlock on the matter.

Second, you have flagging economic growth. 2017 GDP was the slowest since 2012, and Brexit woes are only going to weigh further on the economy as long as current situation is prolonged.

Third, you have the constrained consumer. It's something I've been banging on since the start of the year, and the recent retail sales data is another sign that the issue is still persisting. And a constrained consumer isn't going to be a healthy contributor to economic growth either, so that's another negative point.

At current levels, to the downside there are bids sitting between 1.3725-30 as Mike pointed out here which is keeping cable propped up for the time being. But overall sentiment is quite poor for the quid, and unless we get a miraculous breakthrough in Brexit talks, those same issues are still going to plague the currency for quite a while more - as it already has in February.

At the end of January, sterling was the best performing currency against the major bloc. Here's a look at the standings now:

YTD performance of major currencies against the US dollar