Welcome back to our regular look at how the British pound is faring in the world currency markets. This is the time where you need to keep your currency converter close at hand to get the results you want, but we have all the relevant figures right here to show you whether the pound had a good or a bad finish to the month of April. We’re focusing on the last three days of the month this time around, so let’s begin by seeing what happened on the initial two days of the last week of April.
We actually had a poor start to the week with the British pound achieving just one reasonable result out of the main five currencies we check out each time. This was against the Euro, where we added on 0.0003 over two days. Elsewhere it was bad news the whole way, with a loss of 0.002 against the US dollar and 0.014 against the Hong Kong dollar. We also lost out on nearly three cents against the New Zealand dollar and three quarters of a cent against the Aussie dollar. Clearly this was not the best week for the British pound, although we were focusing on just the first two days here. We still had three more days to go and those are the days we will be focusing on here and now, so we can see whether we got a better end to the week than the way we started it.
Let’s move on now to see what actually did happen.
An overview of the currency markets for April 26th – April 27th 2010
So we are starting from a rate of 1.5327 against the US dollar, after our small loss at the start of the week. Could we improve on that now?
The midweek point got off to a bad start as it saw the pound dip down to 1.5210. But could we regain that loss and finish the week better than we had started it?
Well we did improve things slightly on Thursday, but only to the point of marginally recovering some of the previous day’s losses. This is when the exchange rate finished the day on 1.5274. The final day of the week saw another improvement but it wasn’t enough to save the whole week from an overall loss. We finished on Friday night on 1.5299, which meant we had lost out on 0.0028 since Tuesday evening.
Let’s move on and see whether we could achieve more against the Euro. This was our one saving grace during the first two days of the week, as we added on 0.0003 to leave us on 1.1533 on Tuesday evening. Again though, we had a dip in store on Wednesday, as we finished the day on a lower rate of 1.1483. Was there anything we could do to rectify this and finish the week in a stronger position?
We certainly did a lot better on Thursday as we finished off the day on 1.1522, but there was still one day to go and the pound wasn’t exactly looking like it was in the driving seat here. Eventually we ended up with a rate of 1.1490 on Friday evening, which meant we had lost out on nearly half a Euro cent during those last three days of the week.
Moving on to Hong Kong, we finished up on 11.899 on Tuesday night. And once again Wednesday had a dip in store, dropping us back to 11.814 by the end of the day. Could we do anything to strengthen our position here or would the Hong Kong dollar be the victor over these last three days?
We did better on the following day by bringing ourselves back up to 11.861, but even though we pulled ourselves back up again on Friday it wasn’t enough. The closing rate for the week was 11.877, meaning we had dropped a total of 0.022 over those final three days.
Let’s move on and see whether we could stop the rot in New Zealand now, after losing nearly three cents in the first two days of the week. We’re starting from 2.1283 on Wednesday morning, and by the evening that had slid back to 2.1216. Things weren’t looking good, and that feeling was compounded by a slip to 2.1131 the following day.
There was worse in store though as the rate fell to 2.0974 by Friday evening, so we had lost out on a further three cents here. Not the best week in New Zealand by any stretch of the imagination, was it?
Finally we have the Australian dollar to go up against, and here so far we had lost three quarters of a cent, leaving us on 1.6602 on Tuesday evening. By Wednesday night that had dropped to 1.6471 and there was a further drop to 1.6445 on the way the following day. We eventually finished the week on 1.6421, meaning we’d lost out on 0.0181 in total. Not the best week at all for the pound.
Notable events in the world of currency
US dollar dips against the Aussie dollar
From 1.0831 on Tuesday night, the US dollar dipped to 1.0733 by the end of the week.
New Zealand dollar dips then climbs against the Aussie dollar
From a starting rate of 0.7800 the New Zealand dollar lost some ground midweek before climbing back to 0.7829 to close out the week.
Good improvement for New Zealand dollar against Canadian dollar
It started Wednesday morning on 0.7228 and settled on 0.7329 on Friday night.
The final leaders’ debate in the UK for the forthcoming election actually helped out the British pound towards the end of last week. You can read more about this story on the Reuters website.
So here we are at the end of another week – and it certainly wasn’t the best week for the British pound. But now we are into election week itself, so perhaps Friday’s results will be indicative of whatever happens at the polls on Thursday. We’ll see you again soon.
Well it would appear that we are looking at all the different dollars in the three small reports at the bottom of this page on this occasion. I like reading these bits and it was a surprise to see the US dollar going down against the Canadian dollar. I always tend to assume the US dollar will go up against anything and everything, because it always seems to. I suppose I am being very negative about the currency but I get a bit more excited when it is having a hard time for once.
I know the dollar goes down sometimes but it never seems to go down very far does it? I suppose it is probably just steadier than some other currencies are.