Here we are again with a look at the latest round of results for the British pound on the currency converter. Will the past week have been a good one or a bad one? Let’s find out.
An overview of the currency markets for September 12th – September 16th 2011
The last time we caught up with the pound and how it was doing against the US dollar it had garnered an exchange rate of 1.5956. But things changed rather rapidly during the new week, with a closing rate on Monday of 1.5876. The figures dropped over the next two days as well, falling to 1.5789 in the process. Finally the week ended on a depressing 1.5785, giving us a poor start to the week in the process.
The Euro has never been far from the news in recent weeks. But has the pound got what it takes to do better against the beleaguered single currency?
Our opening rate of the week was 1.1548 and we improved this to 1.1625 by Monday night. It didn’t last long though because we dropped back to 1.1585 after one more day of trading. From then on it was almost downhill all the way to finish on 1.1471 by Friday night. If the Euro was in trouble, the pound didn’t look much healthier.
When we last saw the Hong Kong dollar we had a rate of 12.437 against it. Unfortunately our opening rate turned out to be the biggest one of the week. This was one of those times when the downward spiral was slow and steady all week, leaving the pound on a much lower 12.297 by Friday night.
Next up is the New Zealand dollar. Our opening rate here was 1.9245, but although we managed to improve on that on the opening day by ending on 1.9366, this was as good as we would get. The closing rate on Friday evening was a much lower 1.9044. This was turning into quite a disappointing week.
Finally we have the Australian dollar to check out. Would we see a similar disappointment here as well?
We started on 1.5157, left over from the previous week. The opening day was nothing if not positive as we soared to 1.5375. Could we keep it up though? The week long high point turned out to come on Wednesday evening, as we closed on 1.5412. Unfortunately we couldn’t hang onto it long enough and we eventually finished up on 1.5264 by Friday evening. So we hadn’t had the best week overall by any stretch of the imagination.
Notable events in the world of currency
A steep drop for the pound against the Canadian dollar
We lost ground here this week, dropping from 1.5842 to 1.5558 in the process.
A similar pattern is seen against the Swiss franc
Another disappointment was evident here as the pound fell from 1.4048 to 1.3832 during the week.
A smaller drop against the Chinese yuan
The fall here was not as steep, but the pound still dropped from 10.193 to 10.076 overall.
The news was filled with reports about the Euro and the state of the European Union. With Greece grabbing many of the headlines last week there was still time for news about other currencies though – even if they were tied in some way to the events in Europe as well.
A typical example was a news story from Bloomberg, which focused on various Asian currencies and their loss in value. Concerns over the situation in Europe were mostly to blame for the fall, so we can see that the struggling Euro is having a marked knock on effect on the rest of the world as well.
We shall be watching the situation in Europe closely over the coming days and weeks, because there is every chance that the worst news is still to come.
Importing is always cheaper when the pound is doing well. But unfortunately we haven’t seen a particularly strong pound for a while now. More than that, it appears to be going downhill to some extent. Does anyone else think the same thing or is it just me? I am disappointed that we haven’t pulled out of the recession and instead we are going back in the opposite direction. Hopefully we can do better in the near future.