Here we are again with another currency report at a time when things are rather turbulent on the markets. The currency converter could reveal some interesting and surprising results this time around, so let’s see what it has to tell us.
An overview of the currency markets for September 19th – September 23rd 2011
Firstly we’ll take a look at what the British pound did against the US dollar last week. We last left it on 1.5785, but we saw an immediate drop as the new week began, sending the pound down to 1.5713. But things were to get a lot worse over the course of the week as the pound fell even further and ended up on a disappointing 1.5395 against the dollar by Friday evening.
Now to the Euro, and it is facing unprecedented problems at the moment. We last left the pound on 1.1471 and it started the week well by lifting to 1.1519. But this would be as good as things got, and the pound struggled to maintain this level and dropped to 1.1463 by Tuesday evening. It dropped a little more before regaining the 1.1463 amount by Friday night.
Let’s move on and see whether we could do any better against the Hong Kong dollar, as we left the pound on 12.297. But here too we could not gain a good result, and we dropped throughout the week to end up on a disappointing 12.008. This is as low as we have seen the pound against this currency for a long time.
Could we hope to achieve anything better against the New Zealand dollar? It seems like an age since we saw a good result here, so perhaps we were overdue to climb from the starting point of 1.9044 to something better? In fact this is what happened, as we improved to 1.9100 and survived a small dip to 1.9066 the following day to continue our climb. Impressively enough we managed to rise to the giddy heights of a 1.9881 exchange rate by the close of play on Friday night.
Finally we have the Australian dollar to check, and here we were starting from 1.5264. Hopefully we could mirror the result we had achieved in New Zealand – would such a thing be possible though? Indeed it would, as we followed an almost identical pattern to rise to the Friday closing rate of 1.5862 overall. So at least we did not have a total disappointment across the board.
Notable events in the world of currency
A good improvement against the Canadian dollar
Even though things looked bad against the US dollar, it did not pan out the same way against the Canadian dollar. Here we rose from 1.5558 to 1.5883 overall.
Another rise against the Swiss franc
We did better here too, rising from 1.3832 to 1.3979 over the week, although we had reached a higher point of 1.4056 on Thursday.
An excellent improvement against the Indian rupee too
Here we rose from 74.593 to 76.102 during the week, providing us with another reason to celebrate.
Of course one of the main stories of last week proved to be the situation the Euro finds itself in. The currency is struggling against all comers at the moment, hampered by the debt situation in Europe. All eyes are on Greece and whether it defaults on its loans.
There was better news for the pound though, as reported by Reuters, as it did better than perhaps was expected. The same story pointed to the problems the Euro is experiencing.
So it remains to be seen how many more reports we will write before we are talking about the demise of the Euro. Already the currency is seen as being on the ropes, and whether it will survive or not is still being debated. We shall be watching very closely as the days wear on.
I haven’t travelled to Europe recently, but judging by the news it is clear that there are lots of problems going on in that region. I wonder whether it would be better or worse for Greece to default and leave the Euro in the long run. I think there must be a partial default, perhaps to ward off the chance of a complete default? I do feel for the people in that country at the moment.
I think the Euro is on its last legs to be honest. It’s at times like these that I feel glad I only have a hobbyist’s interest in the currency markets. I would definitely not like to get involved in currencies at any other level, other than what I spend of course. I would be surprised if it is still here in twelve month’s time, and I think it could go down before that.