It’s hard to believe we have finished with August and we are now into the first few days of trading in September. Where is the year going? It certainly doesn’t seem to be heading in the right direction for the British pound as far as the figures on the currency converter are concerned. Perhaps this time we shall have better news in that respect?
We didn’t end August on the best note so perhaps we can do better now as the new month gets underway.
An overview of the currency markets for September 1st – September 3rd 2010
Let’s begin then as we always do by seeing whether the British pound can take on the US dollar and come out on top. Our previous closing figure was 1.5373, after a bad end to the month.
The first sign was encouraging as we ended Wednesday evening on a figure of 1.5402 instead. It was only slightly better, but better than nothing for sure. Thursday took us back in the opposite direction though, giving us a reduced amount of 1.5392 instead. Could we salvage the week and perk up again on Friday?
Indeed we could, as we finally finished on 1.5403, giving us at least a small something to celebrate as September got underway.
Could we do something similar against the Euro though? It would be nice if we could, and we had a starting point of 1.2124 to go from here.
By Wednesday night this had slipped back to 1.2032 so things were not looking good at this stage. Thursday saw a lower rate of 1.2008 on the cards and by Friday the third loss was almost predictable. Fortunately it was only a small one and the final figure for the week was 1.2001.
Moving on to the Hong Kong dollar now, we last saw a figure of 11.960 on the cards here as we waved goodbye to August. September dawned and saw the pound in slightly better shape as it finished the 1st on 11.977. It was downhill again after that though as we ground to a halt on 11.962 the next day. Finally we finished the week on a better figure of 11.971, giving us hope that September might pan out to be better than the month before.
Our next stop is the New Zealand dollar, where we finished off August on 2.2050. If we were hoping for a good end to the week we certainly didn’t get it here. This much was obvious even from just one day of trading. Wednesday saw the pound slump to 2.1794.
If we were not yet recovered from this disappointment there was still more to come. Thursday saw the pound drop further to 2.1492, and while the rate of weakness slowed on Friday to 2.1483 it was cold comfort.
Our final stop for the week is the Australian dollar. We were almost assured of a similar pattern here as we went from the starting rate of 1.7342 down to 1.7015 in just twenty four hours. Another drop the next day took us below AU$1.70 to 1.6930 for the first time. And finally we finished the week looking rather sorry for ourselves on 1.6915.
It wasn’t a good time for the pound was it?
Notable events in the world of currency
A drop for the pound against the Canadian currency too
Here was another poor result, slumping from 1.6354 to 1.6275 over those same three days.
A marginal loss against the Swiss franc
The pound also dropped slightly here from 1.5682 to 1.5654 over the same period. However it was lower still on Thursday so it did recover slightly.
… and another drop against the Indian currency
Here we went down from 72.350 to 71.794 in a quite steady fashion as the week went by.
We don’t always hear stories about currencies being devalued. But we have had a story of just this nature in the last couple of days from the Bloomberg website.
It concerns the Ethiopian currency devaluing its currency. The devaluation occurred against the US dollar, so it will be interesting to see the effect it has in the near future.
We’ll be back in a few days with our next report, so we’ll see if the pound perks up by then.