It’s time once again to check out what has been happening on the currency markets. Will the British pound have done well on the currency converter this time, or will the other major currencies have been on a winning streak?
An overview of the currency markets for January 17th – January 21st 2011
The pound had an excellent week against the US dollar last week, climbing up to an impressive 1.5850 by the time the week was over. It capitalised on that by the time the 19th came along, as it had gone up still further to 1.6015 by then.
It couldn’t quite hang on to the heights by then though, as it slipped back marginally to 1.5939 by the end of the week. However this was still better than it had been before.
Moving on now to the Euro, 1.1873 was the best we could finish on last time. As the new week began it soon became clear that the pound could achieve more. It climbed to 1.1966 on the 18th, but this would turn out to be as good as it would get. It then lost its momentum and gradually slid back to 1.1788 as the week came to a finish.
So let’s see whether the Hong Kong dollar could battle away against the pound or whether the British pound would win the day as it had against the US dollar. It had finished the previous week on 12.324 but could it do better?
It did actually make good headway for the first few days, and the high point was an exchange rate of 12.456 on the 19th. But the pound did fall back slightly to end the week on 12.413.
We did well against the New Zealand dollar previously too, managing to increase our standing to 2.0655 after a poor week beforehand. We did well for the first couple of days here too, climbing to 2.0733 by Tuesday before falling back to 2.0605 the following day. However the pound was still in control overall and eventually it finished the week on an impressive 2.1036.
Finally we also had a good time against the Aussie dollar previously, ending on 1.6062 the week before. But this time we had a very up and down week, seesawing between the good and the bad as every day went past. Finally we ended on 1.6110, so at least we had managed to put a slight improvement in to celebrate with.
Notable events in the world of currency
The pound increases its rate against the Canadian dollar
A gradual improvement from 1.5791 to 1.5885 was seen here, giving the pound something else to celebrate for the week as a whole.
Little difference against the Swiss franc
The pound could not get a good result against every single foreign currency though. It only moved from 1.5334 to a marginally better 1.5341 against the Swiss franc.
A better showing against the Icelandic currency
There was better news here though as the pound climbed from 184.084 to 186.468 over the course of the week.
Some weeks definitely produce better results than others. The pound did well on the previous week so this one seemed a little lacklustre to say the least.
Part of this story of the pound and its ducks and dives was told on the Reuters website. Hopefully it will perk up once again, and we have seen worse weeks for certain. Perhaps after the excellent results of last week we shouldn’t have expected to see a similar report once again.
But at least it wasn’t a total washout. We had reasonable results here and there and there was nothing totally disappointing to look at. If next week continues in this cautious but not too bad fashion it would be something to be reasonably confident about.
We will be back to reveal whether the pound could keep up its good performance – or not.
I don’t generally focus on the pound when I am dabbling in the Forex markets. But it could have helped me gain some good returns this week, judging by the results given above. It is nice as a UK person to see a stronger pound reported on anyway, because it is always the case that it gives us some good points to think about. Perhaps we can look for better results next week as well?
I have to agree with CShort above; I don’t usually focus on the pound either in the Forex markets. I wonder whether it is because we are too close to it because we use it every day. Whatever the case might be I don’t think we can really worry about it; it makes sense to stick to the Forex transactions you like and use the most. Maybe the pound wouldn’t be lucky for us.