It may seem hard to believe another week has gone by, but indeed it has and here we are again ready to look at the currency markets once more. How would the British pound perform over this week – would we have good or bad results to focus on?
An overview of the currency markets for November 5th – November 9th 2012
This week the British pound began the week on 1.6030 against the US dollar. This soon dipped to 1.5973 at the end of the first day, so would this be a bad week for the British currency? It did perk up a little on Tuesday, rising to 1.5981 in the process, but it soon dropped again to 1.5964 on Wednesday. Unfortunately this wouldn’t be enough to guarantee a good finish to the week, as the pound ended up sliding down to 1.5922 by Friday night.
The next stop would be the Euro, where the pound last left things on 1.2475. There was good news on day one as the pound rose to 1.2501 but it dipped back again to 1.2485 the following day. However things then started to look up again and by Thursday evening the pound was looking healthier on 1.2554. It fell back to close the week on 1.2543 but at least it had done better than we thought it would.
Our next stop is the Hong Kong dollar, where the opening rate was 12.423. Would things perk up from here or go on a downward slide? Unfortunately the answer was the latter, as the pound slid to 12.379 on day one. It then went on an up and down battle that saw it try to gain back some ground, although it didn’t seem to work too well as the closing rate was more disappointing than ever. The pound lost a total of 0.082 over the week to close on 12.341.
On we go then to New Zealand, where the pound was worth 1.9377 at the start of the week. It made a reasonable early start by closing on 1.9396 on Monday evening, before dropping to 1.9594 on Tuesday. However the best was yet to come and from that moment on it climbed throughout the week. Indeed it managed to finish on a healthy 1.9594 by the time the week was over.
Finally we have the Australian dollar to look at. Could we repeat the same feat here as well? The pound began on 1.5436 but had an early drop to close on 1.5424 on Monday evening. However this was not the worse result by far. Indeed the pound had a long fall to come and as it turned out it would end the week on a very disappointing 1.5366. Sometimes the performance against the Aussie dollar will mirror that against the New Zealand dollar, but it didn’t turn out that way this week.
Notable events in the world of currency
A small improvement against the Canadian dollar
Here the pound managed to go up from 1.5946 to a slightly better 1.5967 by the time the week was done. It was better than a prolonged loss, at any rate.
Better news against the Swiss franc
Here the pound put in a stronger performance, as it moved up from 1.5061 to 1.5119 over the course of the week.
But another drop was in store against the Chinese currency
Disappointingly enough, the pound fell from 10.005 to 9.9438 against the Chinese currency last week.
It was certainly a shame to see the British pound have something of an unstable week after a couple of better performances it had managed of late. Hopefully it will manage to put in a better performance again in the weeks to come, as it seemed to have lost some ground this week.
So it has been a tough ride this week. We can but hope we shall return next week with better news to share.