Welcome back to our currency report, which this week sees the end of May and welcomes in the first day of June. Will it be a good or a bad start to the month for the British pound? Let’s find out.
An overview of the currency markets for May 28th – June 1st 2012
The opening rate for the pound against the US dollar this time was 1.5676, but this immediately improved to 1.5705 by the end of the first day. The question was where it would go next. The answer was back down again, this time to 1.5665. But it fell far more steeply by the end of the week, seeing in June with a lower rate of 1.5306 as a result.
So what would be the outcome for the pound against the Euro? The opening rate here was 1.2495 and this crept up steadily over the next few days. The high point of the week was when the pound hit a rate of 1.2535 on Wednesday, but beyond that there was nothing but bad news on the way. Eventually the pound finished the week on a rather disappointing 1.2422.
As far as the Hong Kong dollar was concerned the pound started off on 12.169. This improved to 12.191 the following day before dipping back below the rate it had started with. From that point on the week didn’t go according to plan and the pound ended up dipping to a low point of 11.879 before the week was out. It wasn’t the best start to June, this much was clear.
If we were getting the feeling that this wasn’t the best end to the month of May, nor the best start to the new month, we were not convinced otherwise by the pound’s performance against the New Zealand dollar. Here the pound began on 2.0695 and could not rise above this for the entire week. Instead it hit a low point of 2.0400 on the last day of the week, so things weren’t going well here at all.
Finally let’s see whether there was any good news to be had for the pound versus the Australian dollar. The opening rate was 1.6012 and while we were hoping this would improve somewhat it didn’t turn out to be the case. Perhaps predictably the pound dropped to its lowest rate on Friday evening – 1.5865 – and this turned out to be akin to the experience we’d had in New Zealand.
Notable events in the world of currency
A significant drop against the Canadian dollar
Bad news came early here, as the pound went from 1.6106 to 1.5893 by the end of the week.
More bad news against the Swiss franc
There was no real delight in the main currency pairings last week, as the pound dropped from 1.5011 to 1.4916 here too.
Another disappointing drop against the Icelandic krona
Here the pound went from 202.214 to 199.724 over the course of the week.
There were plenty of news stories concerning the state of the Euro last week, but there were a fair few about the pound too, including this one from Reuters. It is clear that the pound is struggling somewhat at the moment, although it is not in the dire straits the Euro is.
There is every reason to assume the pound will continue to have troubled results for the foreseeable future, instead of reaping good rewards as it has in the past. But we will see whether this actually comes to pass or whether it performs better than we think it might. We shall be watching closely to see how the pound does as June gets underway, and how well the other main currencies perform as well. Needless to say we’ll be back next week to see how the pound is doing. We’ll see you then.