Well here we are again – another week has flown by and it is time once more to check the currency markets to see how the British pound has been getting on. Last week we had a mixed bag of results, but it verged on being a bad week all in all. We had done well against the US dollar and the Hong Kong dollar, but when it came to the Euro we stalled badly. And we didn’t do well against the Aussie or Kiwi dollars either.
The pound has certainly been struggling somewhat of late, and there hasn’t been a really good week that we could call a success for a while now. There have been some reasonable results for sure, but they have always been tempered with worse ones elsewhere.
It makes us wonder how long we will have to wait to get a good week of results all round. It may not happen for a while yet, but it is good to hope for such things as it keeps us feeling positive. Who knows? We may be at that week already – we will soon find out for sure.
Many people are still taking a close look at whatever their currency converter is telling them though. Because of the time of year it is they are still hoping for a last minute getaway, but that might not happen if the exchange rates aren’t good enough. It all depends on how far your money might stretch all in all.
So let’s see whether there is more hope this week for anyone wanting to get away to another country for a week or two. It’s time once again to pit the pound against all kinds of other currencies so we can see where it does the most good. Shall we get started?
An overview of the currency markets for July 20th – July 27th 2009
So first of all we begin with the United States and the dollar versus the British pound. We gained some ground to the tune of nearly a whole cent last week. This left us on 1.6283 at the end of the week, so this is where we will start from this time around. Could we do any better than this?
Well Monday started with something of a surprise really. We don’t often see figures like this going on, especially not against the US dollar. But by the end of the day the pound was claiming a total of 1.6529 US dollars. A quick calculation tells us that the pound had added on nearly two and a half cents in the equivalent of a day, accounting for the weekend of no trading in there too.
What a great start to the week that was! But was it just an early fluke of some kind, and could we hang on to such a great increase until the end of the week?
Let’s see, shall we?
The following day did see something of a predictable decrease in the exchange rate. But it wasn’t perhaps as bad as we thought it might be. The closing rate then was 1.6437, so we were still quite a way ahead on the closing rate of the previous week.
The midweek point brought another slight drop in the exchange rate, but this was a lot smaller than we had seen the previous day. This time it was down to 1.6409, dropping just a small amount thankfully. There were still two days to go though, so would we head back up again or slide back down?
Perhaps almost unbelievably we did well on Thursday and actually managed to increase our standing once again. By the time the markets closed at the end of the day, the British pound was standing at 1.6512 US dollars. We had managed to add on just a little over a cent since the previous day, and we were now 0.0229 up on the closing rate of the week before.
So – could we hang onto this great result so far, or would we lose it all in a single day? That was something we really didn’t want to do, because we felt as though we had done very well to reach this point so far. What would happen next?
Well perhaps predictably there was another loss to cope with on Friday, as the markets closed and everyone went home after another long week. But it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. In the end it meant that we finished on a total of 1.6409 US dollars to the British pound. So we lost around a cent since the previous day, but that still left us on 0.0126 higher than we had finished the previous week. All in all we have to look on that as a great success.
But could we repeat that effort with the Euro as well? It would be wonderful if we could, but let’s find out what actually happened.
We lost a cent against the Euro last time, leaving us on 1.1556 at the end of the week, so what could we do here? Well we did see another nice jump up on Monday, as we finished on 1.1626 at that point. Not as big a jump as we had seen against the dollar, but it was a good start at least.
Next came Tuesday and by the end of that day we had unfortunately lost some ground again. We managed to cling onto an exchange rate of 1.1556 here – the same as we had finished on the previous week. What could we achieve in the three days that were still to come?
Wednesday actually saw very little movement in the exchange rate between the British pound and the Euro. We managed to make what little movement there was go in our favour though. By the time the markets closed we were standing on 1.1563 – having added a small 0.0007 on over the previous twenty four hours.
So what would happen next? We still had two days to go but we didn’t feel the same level of confidence here as we had against the US dollar. We did see a better result on the Thursday though that did improve things a bit. We managed to up things and finish on an exchange rate of 1.1604 as everyone headed home from the markets that day. What could we achieve on the final day we wondered? So far we were slightly ahead on the closing figure of the previous week, but anything could happen in a day and that meant we were focusing on those last twenty four hours of the week.
And as things turned out they were destined to go down slightly. We could have done worse, but we ended up finishing the week on an exchange rate of 1.1534 against the Euro. That meant we had lost out over the week as a whole, but thankfully not by much – just 0.0022 in the end.
Moving onto Hong Kong, this was one of just two currencies where we actually got ahead last time. We had finished up on 12.619 after adding 0.063 over the whole week, so we were obviously hoping to repeat that type of result this week too. But did we actually do it?
Once again Monday got us off to the best start, leaving us on an exchange rate of 12.810 at the close of play. But as we have seen that doesn’t necessarily set us up for the whole week, and indeed Tuesday saw a slipping of our fortunes as we finished up on 12.738 by the end of the day.
That still meant we were considerably better off that we had been at the end of the previous week though. So could we keep this up and make sure we were able to finish on a high for the week as a whole?
Wednesday saw us slide a little but thankfully not by much. By the close of play the pound was standing at 12.717, having dropped back by just a small amount. But once again Thursday saw another surge forward and we finished up on 12.797 for the end of the day.
Just one more day to go now though – so could we achieve a good result or a bad one? Well we did slide back slightly from where we finished up on Thursday, but that didn’t mean it was all bad news. We ended up on 12.717 at the close of play for last week, but that was a better figure than we had achieved at the end of the previous week. In total we had added on 0.098, so we had got what we wanted there.
That made two out of three good results so far, but we had seen exactly the same position at this point last time. Now we had New Zealand and Australia to handle, and we had done badly in both of these cou
ntries last time. Would history repeat itself here too?
Let’s find out. We lost six and a half cents against the Kiwi dollar last time, leaving us on 2.5290 for the end of the week. Now then, would we go down or up this week?
We ended up on 2.5245 at the end of Monday’s trading, and although that wasn’t a big loss it bucked the trend we had seen elsewhere that week. The downward pattern continued on Tuesday as well, as we lost more ground and finished up on 2.5016. Were we headed for an exact repeat of the profits and losses that we had seen the week before, with the New Zealand dollar registering a big loss for the pound once more?
We did at least manage to stem the losses the following day, as we ended up on 2.5042. Only a slight increase perhaps, but it meant a lot to us at this point. Things pretty much stalled on Thursday as we saw such a slight change that the decimal points we work to didn’t register it – we were still on 2.5042 at the end of the day.
But unfortunately Friday saw another drop in fortunes for the British pound against the New Zealand dollar. By the end of the day we finished up on 2.4986, so that meant we had lost a total of just over three cents over the whole week. We have had worse weeks – just take the week before as an example – but this wasn’t a good one either.
So once again we have mirrored last week’s results. And we know that Australia provided another loss for the pound last time. We were going to see the same again this time, or would the Aussie dollar be the result that bucked the trend?
Our starting point was 2.0364. And there was very little change by the close of play on Monday, with the pound settling on 2.0358 Aussie dollars by the end of the day. We had the feeling there was more in store though, and as things turned out we were right.
We dropped back a lot on Tuesday, ending up on 2.0152 at the end of the day. Could we claim any of this back as the week got underway?
A slight jump on Wednesday saw us finish on 2.0183, but we still had to try and make some headway here. But once again on Thursday we fell back and lost ground again, settling on 2.0164 at the end of the day.
Just one more day to go now and we finished on 2.0084 at the end of the week. That meant we had lost here too, with a total of 0.028 over the week. So we had the same gains and losses – albeit in different amounts – that we had seen the week before. Hopefully we might see more than two gains out of five next week.
Notable events in the world of currency
US dollar loses ground against Aussie dollar too
The Aussie dollar is clearly stronger at the moment, as it pushed the US dollar back from 1.2316 at the end of Monday to 1.2239 at the end of the week. At least it isn’t just the pound having a rough time.
The Euro and US dollar are locked in a head to head
There wasn’t much movement between these two currencies last week. The exchange rate on Monday was 0.7033 Euros to the dollar, and that had barely moved to 0.7028 by Friday.
India barely moves against the Euro either
The rupee didn’t achieve much against the Euro last week either. You had to look to further decimal points to see any movement at all, with the exchange rate going from 0.014598 on Monday to 0.014573 on Friday.
As always we take a look at a major news story that was hitting the headlines as we were writing this report, and one that caught our eye this morning was part of the Reuters website.
The news story here, told of the state of the markets and how things could pan out in future weeks. It made an interesting read, and it could give us an insight into next week’s report too.
We’ll be here as always to tell you what happened, so we’ll see you then.
Two gains out of five – that doesn’t sound like very good odds, does it? We were doing well a few weeks back – what happened? I hope the pound isn’t on a gradual slide backwards again, although it doesn’t seem to be happening really. It’s more like things have stagnated a bit, isn’t it?
I wonder where we will be by the end of the year though. Especially when we look back at last Christmas – will this year be any better? Will the pound be on the up again properly by then? I hope so – it feels like we are well and truly stuck at the moment!
I wonder why it is that the Australian dollar and the New Zealand dollar seem to mirror each other when it comes to how they perform against the pound. When one does badly so does the other one, and when one does well you can bet the other one will follow the same pattern.
I know the amounts we’re talking about are sometimes nowhere near the same, but the trend is still there more often than not. I’m just curious to see if anyone knows the answer or has any ideas. Every week it seems like I see this pattern and I don’t know why!
I agree with what the first commenter said about being well and truly stuck. I don’t think the state of the pound is really going to make a lot of difference to me though. I think it affects businesses and people going on holiday more than anything else.
I don’t know, maybe my job is more at risk if the business I work for struggles. We’ll see. Hopefully it won’t affect me at all if the pound has a bad week or two. Part of me thinks I shouldn’t be worrying about it – I should just let nature take its course. It will anyway!