Here we are with another fresh look at what is going on in the currency markets. Would the British pound have a good week, a bad one or one that was purely indifferent? Let’s see how it performed against the usual five currencies.
An overview of the currency markets for August 27th – August 31st 2012
So here we are again with another week on the currency markets for the British pound. It started the week on 1.5839 against the US dollar, and by the end of Monday evening it had slipped back to 1.5811. There was more bad news in store on Tuesday as the pound weakened further, ending on 1.5789. Fortunately that turned out to be the worst point of the week, and by Friday evening the pound had improved to 1.5857.
What was in store as far as the head to head with the Euro was concerned though? Would the pound do better here? Its starting point was 1.2664 but again the first day wasn’t good as it finished Monday on 1.2619. Another dip came on the following day as the pound fell back to 1.2583. This is where we saw an improvement against the dollar and indeed the same happened here too. But it didn’t stop the pound from slipping further to 1.2574 on Friday evening.
Our next stop is the Hong Kong dollar and the starting point of 12.286 soon eroded to 12.247 two days into the new week. However that was when things started to perk up and the closing rate for the week turned out to be a much healthier 12.298. This was marginally better than we’d started with, so that was good news at least.
The New Zealand dollar was the fourth stop for us this week as per usual, and the opening rate was 1.9547 for the pound. This immediately dropped to 1.9503 by the close of play on day one, making us wonder whether this would be another bad performance. However there was only one direction the pound would go in between that point and Thursday evening, and that was up. It finished Thursday on 1.9809 and although it slipped back to 1.9752 on Friday, it had still put in a good performance this week.
Finally let’s see whether the pound could do as well against the Australian dollar. Our starting rate was 1.5236 and this dropped to 1.5213 on day one. However the pattern then followed the rough one it had followed against the New Zealand dollar, with a high on Thursday (this time of 1.5348) followed by a slight drop to 1.5342 on Friday.
Notable events in the world of currency
A drop against the Canadian dollar
The pound may have done well in some quarters last week, but this didn’t include this particular country. It dropped from 1.5734 to 1.5701 against the Canadian dollar.
Another fall against the Swiss franc
Here the pound fell from 1.5208 to 1.5100 over the course of the week, so more disappointing news here.
Better news against the Icelandic krona though
Here the pound was able to climb from 190.374 to 192.893 over the course of five days of trading.
We know that world events quite often have an effect on one or more currencies, and this week was no different. On this occasion it was the selection of Asian currencies that struggled to get ahead, as this news story indicates. Various events around the world can change the whole way currencies act against each other, and this is shown by the way a whole raft of Asian currencies suffered this week.
Perhaps we may hope that next week will prove more fruitful and the pound will manage to return a wider selection of better results. However this week was not all bad and it certainly gave us a few good results to be proud of. We should keep this in mind as we look ahead to the future.
Aren’t all weeks uncertain in terms of the currency markets? I can’t recall a week when everything was rosy. It all depends on the currencies you look at but it’s a bit of an obvious statement. I suppose in terms of the pound it was fair to say though.
I believe this is part and parcel of how the currency markets work. Depending on which currency you are looking at, one individual week could look very good or very bad, or it could be somewhere in the middle. Look at another currency and you’ll get a different picture entirely. Does that make more sense?