Welcome back to another fact packed currency report, which is going to look at the first two days of trading for this week. We are following on from the mixed results we had to close out the previous week with on the currency converter, which showed us only two good results out of five.
Let’s take a look at how the week ended before we get on with exploring how the new week began. The two good results we had were with the US dollar and the Hong Kong dollar. These allowed us gains of around two cents and 0.141 respectively against these two currencies.
Elsewhere it was a very different story though. Despite the problems the Euro is experiencing at the moment we were unable to gain any real advantage against the European single currency. In fact the loss here over those last three days added up to a marginal 0.0018. This was a small amount but it could have been worse.
And indeed it was worse – a lot worse – when it came to the Australian dollar and the New Zealand dollar. The Aussie dollar definitely got the better of us and we dropped by some three and a half cents against this currency. When it came to the New Zealand dollar we dropped even more – losing out on just over five cents in all here.
So needless to say we were looking for a much better and more positive start to the week. Could we do it though? Let’s find out right now.
An overview of the currency markets for June 14th – June 15th 2010
The starting rate that was in place between the British pound and the US dollar was 1.4623, after our gain of two cents at the end of last week. And we had a good start to this week as well, as we rose up to 1.4743 by the end of the first day of trading.
Things levelled off a bit the following day and we actually lost a little bit of ground, but overall the gains for the first two days were good enough. We finished off Tuesday night on 1.4733, which meant that the increase over two days was just over one cent.
Moving on to the Euro now, we were interested and curious to see how the week would open here. With a starting rate of 1.2058 and a marginal loss from the end of the previous week to think about, we were eager to make sure we started off well here.
But once again this was not what happened. By Monday night the exchange rate had fallen slightly to 1.2036, and there was little hope in store as we went through Tuesday’s trading either. In the end we finished up on Tuesday evening with an exchange rate of 1.2019, which meant we had lost out this time to the tune of just shy of half a Euro cent. Better luck towards the end of the week, perhaps?
Our third stop is as always the Hong Kong dollar, and here at least we did have a good end to the previous week. But could we keep it up and produce a promising start to the week here as well?
Our starting point was 11.396 and things immediately looked more promising than they had against the two previous currencies we have looked at so far. We managed to climb up to 11.488 by the end of Monday night, and although we experienced a slight dip on Tuesday it wasn’t enough to ensure we failed. Instead we landed on 11.478, which gave us an overall increase across two days of 0.082.
Now we move on to see how the British pound could fare against the New Zealand dollar. We had a disastrous end to the week last week, as we managed to lose out on a total of some five cents. Could we climb our way back up from the 2.1248 exchange rate that left us on?
Unfortunately the answer was no on Monday at least, as we managed to lose more ground to finish up on 2.1169 by the close of the day. There was better news on Tuesday as the pound crawled its way back up and finished up on 2.1235, but this still meant a small loss over those two days. In the end we were down by 0.0013.
And finally we have the Australian dollar to look at. Here we also lost a lot of ground last week, dropping around three and a half cents over the last couple of days. This left us on 1.7244, so could we improve things from here?
Once again it didn’t look promising when we saw how the first day of trading went. By the end of Monday evening the pound stood at 1.7114 against the Aussie dollar, so already it had some picking up to do. And when Tuesday ended things were little better – the pound had crawled back up to 1.7188 but this was still lower than it had started the week at. A loss of half a cent was thus recorded here.
Notable events in the world of currency
New Zealand dollar drops against Australian dollar
The Kiwi dollar fell back from 0.8115 to 0.8094 at the beginning of the week, giving first blood to the Aussie dollar.
US dollar dips then recovers against Canadian dollar
An interesting situation here led to the US dollar dropping from 1.0308 to 1.0272 by Monday evening, before recovering to 1.0302 by the end of Tuesday evening.
The Euro climbs against the Swiss franc
It was a good start to the week here as the Euro climbed from 1.3893 to 1.3998 over the first couple of days.
The state of financial affairs in Europe is troubling for those looking to invest in European currencies at the moment. This story from Bloomberg illustrates just one of the issues occurring at the moment.
So there we have it – another debatable week for the pound. We will be back next week to see if the pound could finish the week on a better note.
I want to mention the story given near the end of this article, about the US dollar and its performance against the Canadian dollar. We all know these two currencies are constantly locking horns, and the fact that the US dollar ‘dipped, then recovered’ against the Canadian currency just goes to show there is only limited value in watching the currency markets every single day.
I suppose it would be different if the people watching them were involved in currency trading, because then every minute would count. I could never do that myself which is probably why I take a longer view.
I wonder how many people do this though? Sometimes the pound can fall in a day and everyone throws up their hands and panics.