So here we are again with another currency report focusing on the events of the week going from November into the final month of the year. Will the British pound have garnered good or bad results on the currency converter?
An overview of the currency markets for November 29th – December 3rd 2010
The opening rate we have to play with against the US dollar is 1.5656, but our first day of play saw the US dollar beating the pound and pushing it back to 1.5575. We dropped back again on day two but then increased our position to 1.5626 instead. We achieved much the same over the next couple of days too, dropping one moment and then regaining a similar position the next. Finally we ended the week slightly worse off on 1.5620.
Could we manage to do better where the Euro was concerned though? Our starting point against the single currency was 1.1838 and this was boosted to 1.1848 the following day. When Tuesday’s trading closed at 1.1938 for the pound we were wondering if this would be a wholly successful week. Unfortunately it was then a case of downhill all the way, and that meant we were nursing our sorrows as we ended on 1.1792 on Friday evening.
Moving on now, let’s see whether we could achieve something better against the Hong Kong dollar. We started with a figure of 12.154 but it dropped over the next couple of days before we recovered to 12.136. It seemed as though the pound was destined to have an up and down week against every currency. This was certainly the case here as we finished the week on 12.128.
As far as the New Zealand dollar was concerned we were starting the week on 2.0898. But things were all set to go downhill overall here as well, even though the first two days were promising and led to us improving to 2.0959. It was as if we had just enough to get a promising result, before dropping the ball and finishing much lower – as we did here on 2.0659.
Finally there is the Aussie dollar and we could only hope that we were able to improve on the starting rate of 1.6236. Unfortunately once again we were destined to get down to lower levels as we ended up with a closing rate for the week of 1.5929. We simply could not get up above the opening rate at all here, so it closed out a very sorry week for the pound.
Notable events in the world of currency
Pound sees significant drop against the Canadian dollar
Here too we had a disappointing result as we went from 1.6009 to 1.5647 over the course of the week.
Another drop against the Swiss franc too
Yes, there was bad news here as well. The pound fell from 1.5688 to 1.5498 overall, even though it did manage to reach higher amounts in the middle of the week.
More disappointment against the Chinese currency
Here the pound dropped from 10.438 to 10.408 over the course of seven days. It could have been worse though – and indeed it was during the middle of the week.
There was speculation last week that the nature of the recovery may be in doubt. The recession has apparently come to an end, but worries of a double dip recession are still with us. News of the state of the US dollar recently have added to this idea, so we must wait and see whether it perseveres or whether the news gets better over time.
One thing is clear though – the pound did not have a good time of it last week. We can certainly hope that the news gets better over time, but somehow it may take more than a few days for it to happen in reality. We’ll be back next week to see what happens next.
I have to question the nature of the doubts about the recovery that keep cropping up from time to time. It always seems to me as if people can start scaremongering and actually set the whole thing off anyway. If people were more optimistic I wonder whether it would have a more positive effect on how the recovery is going? It would certainly be interesting to see, although it wouldn’t make good news would it?