We are fast approaching the end of the year now, and it is time to find out whether the British pound would be in good or bad shape for it. Here we have the figures for the week immediately before Christmas week, so how would the pound perform?
An overview of the currency markets for December 17th – December 21st 2012
At the beginning of the week the British pound was on 1.6119, and it immediately perked up to finish the opening day on 1.6206. This improved a little more the following day as the pound reached 1.6213. Indeed it turned out to be quite a promising week, because although there was a little dip towards the end of the week, the pound still managed to finish on 1.6223.
But could we replicate this result against the Euro? In fact the pound began the week on 1.2322 here and immediately dropped back to 1.2315. It was only a small drop but it foretold what was to come – more bad news. The low point of the week came on Wednesday as the pound fell to 1.2253, meaning that it recovered to 1.2281 by the time the week was over.
Over in Hong Kong, the pound stood at 12.492 at the start of the week. It then rose to 12.560 by Monday evening, and continued to do well after that. The high point here was 12.632 but this also came on Wednesday. However the pound did do better in the end because it finished the week on a healthier 12.573.
Over to New Zealand now, where the pound started off on 1.9179. Here things also started off well, as the pound climbed to 1.9216 by the end of the first day. But things got far better than this throughout the week, as the pound climbed further and ended up on an impressive 1.9686 on Friday night.
So could it do the same with the Australian dollar as well? Here the opening rate was 1.5316 and the pound gained a decent amount to finish Monday night on 1.5386. It then improved still further until it reached a closing rate of 1.5551 on Friday night. So it had been a reasonably good week all in all.
Notable events in the world of currency
Another good result against the Canadian dollar
Here the pound climbed from 1.5869 to 1.6077 over the course of the week.
But not such a rosy picture against the Swiss franc
It was more disappointing against the Swiss franc though, as the pound fell from 1.4897 to 1.4832. At least the loss was a smaller one.
A slight improvement against the Chinese yuan
Here the pound started on 10.068 and climbed a small amount to close the week on 10.109.
So we had an interesting week in the last full week before the festive season really got underway. Would it continue through to the end of the year though? We have more reports to come so we can monitor the progress (or lack of) that was made by the British pound as 2012 rapidly approaches its end.
The good news was that the pound did rather well this week, even if it did not achieve notable results right across the board. However this is quite common and we can still see a general improvement for the pound, even if it did not apply to every single major currency in the world. We had enough good results to feel quite positive about the results, so hopefully this will continue into the future as well.
We shall be back soon with another set of results for the Christmas week, so while they will be sparse in nature it will still be worth a look at them. Make sure you come back soon to see what happened to the British pound as the festive season got underway in earnest.