Welcome back to another week’s report looking at the currency markets. Will this be a good week for the pound or will there be bad news to report on this time as far as the currency converter results are concerned?
An overview of the currency markets for January 24th – January 28th 2011
1.5939 was the last figure we had available for the British pound, after a reasonable week last time. There was little change the first day of the new week, but then we dipped down to 1.5772. Fortunately there was better news in store for the rest of the week, as we improved and managed to get back to 1.5925. This was slightly lower than we had started with, but it wasn’t too bad.
So next we move on to the Euro. We didn’t do too well last time here, as we finished up on 1.1788. Unfortunately this was not our week either and we ended up falling down to 1.1584 by the midweek point. Luckily we pulled our socks up here too, and by the close of play we had got back to 1.1615.
Next it is the turn of the Hong Kong dollar. We did well last time and finished with a figure of 12.413, but could we sustain it? We were definitely following a pattern here as the midweek figure was much worse than this. But now we were watching for a better end to the week and we got it, as we finished on 12.402.
Our last head to head with the New Zealand dollar left us on an impressive 2.1036. So could we have an equally good week now as well?
The answer, unfortunately, was no. We had a slight dip on Monday but by Tuesday the rate was down to 2.0661. And from there onwards the week went steadily downhill, to leave us clinging onto an awfully low rate of 2.0493 by Friday night.
So where would we be left with the Australian dollar? Our starting rate here was 1.6110 and it was a bit of an up and down week all in all. It wasn’t as bad as the week we’d had against the Kiwi dollar though; instead we finished up on 1.5972 as the week came to a close, so it wasn’t as severe as it could have been.
Notable events in the world of currency
A marginal drop for the pound against the Canadian dollar
Here too there was a loss to contend with, as the pound fell from 1.5885 to 1.5848 over the course of the week.
A bigger drop against the Swiss franc
Here we saw a bigger disappointment as we fell from 1.5341 to 1.5033 as the week went by. Could we hope to rectify things very soon?
But there was better news against the Chinese currency
It wasn’t all bad last week thankfully, as we had an improvement here. We went from 10.493 to 10.504 overall.
Even as the British pound was having a rather disappointing week, there was better news for some other currencies in the world. A notable example was the Swedish krona.
This particular currency had a wonderful time last week, and indeed the reports were rather good – the currency has never been better in the last two years as it is now. The FT.com website tells us more about it.
So it has been a week that has prompted some sobering thoughts. The pound has seen better days but then other currencies have also had better days. We are not alone in struggling to find better form at the moment; we just have to make sure we can do all we can to produce better results in the future.
Perhaps next week shall be better than this week, and we can go into February with more positive results than we finished January with. We’ll be back to reveal more then.
The pound always seems to go through tough times, but I don’t believe this week’s results are particularly bad. As a frequent traveller I constantly have to change the pound up for another currency. Because I travel a lot for business I always tend to notice when the exchange rate is good or bad. It isn’t brilliant this week, but it could be a lot worse as well. Perhaps we should learn that it can ebb and flow.
Finally someone realises that the exchange rates always go up and down! It’s nice to see that recognition because sometimes you can get a fall in the exchange rates and everyone panics. I can understand it when the fall is a large one, but most of the time it doesn’t seem to be. It could just be me but it seems silly to overreact in many cases and panic when there is no need to.