Whenever we hear the news about the British pound, we always hear about it being compared to the US dollar and the Euro. But how is it performing against other currencies?
Take the Chinese yuan, for example. This currency isn't one that you will use a lot on your currency converter. But it is still interesting to see whether the pound is able to put up a fight against a lesser known currency – or whether it is still struggling here too.
Unfortunately the news for January did not look good. The pound claimed 9.9691 yuan to the pound on New Year's Day, and that immediately dropped back to 9.8447 the very next day. Fortunately the first full week of the New Year was rather better, with an increase to 9.9146 on Monday the 5th, and a jump up to 10.2740 on the 7th.
But if we have learned one thing about the pound in these troubled times, it is that it tends to be up one minute and down the next. It managed to increase the exchange rate to 10.4535 by the end of that week, but that was as far as things got.
Tuesday the 13th certainly wasn't all that lucky for the pound as the yuan took the upper hand. The exchange rate between the two currencies by the end of that day was 9.9466 – a full 0.5069 down on the high of the week before.
The huge ups and downs were evident later on that week as well, as the pound jumped from that figure of 9.9466 to 9.9130 and then up to 9.9769. And then it closed out the week on 10.2026. But as it happened that would turn out to be the last time the pound went over the 10.0 mark against the yuan. From here on in the yuan would be in control, and ready to take on the pound and win.
One thing to bear in mind here is that China has been accused of intervening in their currency in recent times. Could that have any bearing on what was happening against the pound during January? There is no easy answer here, but there is an interesting article on the Forbes.com website that reveals a little more about the situation. You can read it by visiting here.
But where did the pound go against the yuan from that high point we just mentioned?
Well on the 19th January it was grabbing 9.9603 yuan to the pound. That slipped markedly to 9.4965 the very next day, and to 9.4050 the day after. The lowest point came at the end of that week, when the exchange rate stood at 9.3205.
But the pound pulled its socks up to close the month on a better note, at least. The best point came on the 28th as it crawled back up to 9.7785. It slipped to 9.7606 at the end of the month, and that meant it was lower than when it started the year.
This is something we see often with the pound. It seems as though it has made good gains over the week, but when you look at the month as a whole it hasn't done so well after all. Let's hope it can do more to turn things around as time goes on.