Welcome back to the latest overview of the currency markets. Could the pound improve on last week’s results and get some better conversions on the currency converter? It’s time to find out.
An overview of the currency markets for January 30th – February 3rd 2012
The opening rate against the US dollar this time around was 1.5707. Hopefully we could improve on that but the initial signs weren’t good as the pound dipped to 1.5685. Luckily that would turn out to be the worst part of the week, as the pound bounced back up to 1.5777 the following day. It reached its highest point too early, achieving 1.5850 on the 1st of February, but it still managed to finish on 1.5813 on Friday evening.
Next it’s the Euro, where the pound had an exchange rate of 1.1949 last time around. Here we soon saw a similar pattern to the one we had against the US dollar. It rose over the first couple of days and reached a high of 1.2030 on the 1st. But it still managed to do well by ending the week better than it had started, achieving 1.2016 as a result.
Let’s see whether the pound could do the same against the Hong Kong dollar now. The starting rate here was 12.182 but it dipped to 12.168 on day one. This was disappointing but luckily the rest of the week was much better. We managed to push the Hong Kong dollar considerably and reached a closing rate of 12.264 as a result.
Three good results so far – could we make it four? Our next stop is the New Zealand dollar. Last time we bagged a rate of 1.9058 to close out the week. Things looked good to begin with as we climbed to 1.9193 on day one. But that would turn out to be the best part of the entire week. After that the pound dragged its heels and it ended up worth 1.9020 by the end of it.
Would we see something similar against the Australian dollar as well? This would give us three good results and two hesitant ones. The starting rate was 1.4729 and things looked up the very next day as we bumped the rate up to 1.4868. But again the best results were reserved for the beginning of the week and we finished up with a rate of 1.4793 by the end.
Notable events in the world of currency
Good news against the Canadian dollar
Here the pound went from 1.5688 to 1.5848 over the course of the week – a good result indeed.
A marginal improvement against the Swiss franc too
It was another good week for the pound here, as we improved from 1.4432 to 1.4479.
A significant improvement against the Chinese currency
We did well here as well, going from 9.9175 at the start of the week to 9.9786 at the end.
We can clearly see that the pound had a good week against a range of currencies last time. It may not have done well against the New Zealand dollar or the Australian dollar, but it certainly did better than it has in the past few weeks. It wasn’t the only currency doing well either, as the Russian ruble had a good week too. You can read more about it on the Bloomberg website.
We can only hope that the pound will be able to keep up this performance, although history tells us that could be difficult. However the struggles of the Euro might make it a little easier for the pound to successfully take advantage of it in the coming days. We shall be keeping an eye on things to see how they progress. In the meantime we can at least be confident that last week was a reasonably good one for us. Let’s hope it continues for a while.