Last time we visited the currency converter and markets we saw the British pound was doing rather well. However one good week does not make a trend, so it is now time to see whether we can stretch this out to two good weeks instead of one.
An overview of the currency markets for August 1st – August 5th 2011
Last week we saw the British pound close things out on a healthy 1.6541. But disappointingly that would turn out to be the best rate of the week. After the start it was downhill virtually all the way. The pound rallied to 1.6509 on the 23rd but then sank back to 1.6261 by Friday night. A sorry end to the week this time, it seemed.
But would the situation with the Euro be any better? Last time we finished off the week on 1.1498, but again the pattern would not be a good one this week. Instead of improving on that we ended up going in the opposite direction, just as we did against the dollar. By the end of the week the pound had withered to 1.1291 against the Euro.
Let’s move on and see whether a similar result was in store for the pound versus the Hong Kong dollar now as well. The opening rate here was 12.901 and very soon we started crumbling. Again there was no doubt that the pound had lost its verve from the previous week, as it finished on 12.679 overall.
The pound had managed to tip over the two dollar mark against the New Zealand dollar last time around, with a closing rate of 2.0012 on Friday night. But that would be the only time it reached such heights in the new week. It lost a lot of ground throughout the five days, eventually stopping the rot on Friday night with a closing rate of 1.9490.
Finally let’s look at what was happening with the Australian dollar. The pound had an exchange rate of 1.5848 here the week before, but again there would only be one pattern this week. This was downhill once again, landing us at 1.5499 by the end of the week.
Notable events in the world of currency
A similar pattern against the Canadian dollar
We slid alarmingly from 1.6315 to 1.6079 here last week too, so there was no good news anywhere to be seen.
A smaller drop against the Swiss franc
At least here the drop was not as pronounced, going from 1.3039 to 1.2937 overall for the British pound.
Another drop against the Chinese yuan
Finally let’s complete the picture of bad news with a drop from 10.579 to 10.386 against the Chinese currency. There was nothing good in the news for the pound, it seemed.
There was plenty of news around last week and this story from Reuters was just one of those that focused on how disappointing a week it was for the British pound.
The question now is how things will progress in the weeks to come. We can be fairly sure that the pound will have its ups and downs, rather than steadily progressing in any one direction. Last week was possibly the best week we have seen in a while, and yet this time we have seen exactly the opposite. It’s disappointing to see, particularly when a good result is tempered by the knowledge that it probably won’t last very long. That has been proven this week.
We would hope that the British pound will be able to recoup some of its losses next time around, but we shall have to wait and see how things play out before we know for sure. It is unlikely that we would recoup all the losses we have seen this week in so short a time though, so perhaps we can just hope for a little bit of good news here and there.
I can’t say I’m surprised to see disappointing results like this. We seem to be on a weekly swing backwards and forwards at the moment. I’m not sure whether we’ll see better results next week, but perhaps a little better would be good instead of the shambles we’ve seen this time. I was almost expecting it after last week’s good news, but hey I suppose we should know by now that the pound is never that strong for long.