We’ve had a strange week on the currency markets already, with the beginning of the Easter weekend disrupting the markets and shortening the previous week. Now we have the Royal wedding week to cope with, where Monday was Easter Monday on the currency markets, followed by the wedding on the Friday. But a shorter week does not mean any less drama on the currency converter. Let’s see how it progressed now.
An overview of the currency markets for April 25th – April 29th 2011
The previous week was a good one for the pound, finishing on 1.6548 against the US dollar. Next time the markets got up and running this improved to 1.6495. Even though all eyes were on the wedding on Friday 29th, there was time enough to appreciate the leap up to 1.6664 by the end of the week.
The real question now was whether the British pound could achieve such a result against the Euro. The last rate from the previous week here was 1.1346. This dropped to 1.1317 on the next day of trading, but would this continue across the whole week? Unfortunately the answer was yes, because by the time we started celebrating the Royal wedding the pound was raking in a lesser figure of 1.1214 against the Euro.
We had a good time against the Hong Kong dollar last time around, ending on 12.857 in the process. A couple of days into the new week we had slipped back to 12.805, but fortunately we managed to end the week on 12.944 all told. So far we were doing quite well – but would it continue?
After a couple of dreadful weeks against the New Zealand dollar, we did better last time by ending on 2.0651. This was a seesaw week though as an immediate drop soon bounced back to 2.0809. After that we finished off the week on a low note again, falling back to 2.0650.
Finally we have the Australian dollar, where the pound last claimed a rate of 1.5388. Here again we had some ups and downs that left us in doubt as to where we’d end up come the end of this particular week. The answer was 1.5206, which was slightly better than we’d started with at least.
Notable events in the world of currency
British pound does well against Canadian dollar
There was good news here as the British pound climbed from 1.5688 to 1.5814 over the course of the week.
A different picture against the Icelandic kronas
From a starting rate of 186.153 the British pound slipped back slightly to 185.194 by the close of the week.
Slight drop against the Singapore dollar
There was a marginal drop here too for the pound, as it fell from 2.0445 to 2.0416 over the course of the week.
Even though we had a week bookended by two Bank Holidays, we weren’t short of currency news to pick up on. A typical example of a story that made headlines throughout the week was the strength of the pound against the US dollar. It is no secret that the dollar is struggling at the moment, and the pound is taking full advantage of that fact. This has made the news headlines on many financial websites, including Reuters.
The real question though is how long sterling can hold itself up against the dollar. It has been a while since we have seen exchange rates of the like that we have here. Many people will remember times when the pound was lower than $1.50 against the American dollar. Not so now – but how long will this pattern of strength last for? It is all down to the pattern of events taking place in America and affecting the dollar, and there is no sign that these will end anytime soon.
We are keeping an eye on things to see when the pound – or the dollar – improves.