Welcome to another currency report, showing the British pound going up against the five main currencies elsewhere in the world. Would this be a good week or a bad one? Let’s see how things panned out.
An overview of the currency markets for July 15th – July 19th 2013
Here we are at the beginning of another week. As things got underway the pound was worth 1.5108 against the US dollar, so how would this progress? The first couple of days were hard work as the pound dropped to close Tuesday on 1.5090. This immediately bounced back to 1.5218 on Wednesday, so how would the remaining two days go? The news was actually pretty good, because by the time Friday evening saw the markets close for the weekend, the British pound had improved a little further to close on 1.5260.
We had started well, but could we replicate this good result with the Euro as well? The opening rate here was 1.1591 and once again the first two days saw a drop in the exchange rate. This saw the pound fall to 1.1503 by Tuesday evening. However things then turned around just as they had against the US dollar. By the time the week was up the pound had soared to a healthier 1.1628 so this was the second good result we’d had so far.
Our third stop is with the Hong Kong dollar, where the pound started the week on 11.719. The pattern was a little different here in that the pound fell to 11.674 on Tuesday before starting to rise again. There was a minor blip on Thursday where it looked as though two days of hard work would be undone, but once that was over the pound was able to restore its good work. Indeed by the time the markets closed the pound was worth 11.838 against the Hong Kong dollar – the highest rate of the entire week.
Let’s move on to see whether we could make it four out of four against the New Zealand dollar now. The opening rate was 1.9418 and this did improve to 1.9432 by the end of Monday evening. However as things turned out it would be an up and down week in this particular part of the world. The following day saw the exchange rate fall to 1.9176 and while it recovered over the next two days, reaching 1.9306 on Thursday, it was not enough. Friday evening closed the week with a lower rate of 1.9153.
Finally the pound started off on 1.6733 against the Australian dollar. Would the same happen here as occurred against the New Zealand dollar? First there was a drop to 1.6630 on Monday, but this fell further to 1.6363 by Tuesday evening. Fortunately the rest of the week was much better, as the pound managed to fight back and achieve a closing rate of 1.6559. However this was not as good as it had started out with.
Notable events in the world of currency
An improvement against the Canadian dollar
This was a good result for the British pound, as it rose from 1.5691 to 1.5835 against the Canadian dollar.
A minor improvement against the Swiss franc
Here the pound started on 1.4359 and managed to edge up slightly to 1.4374 by Friday night.
Another good result against the Chinese yuan
The pound started on 9.2737 here, and eventually managed to improve to close out the week on 9.3665.
It was certainly an up and down week in some ways: the pound didn’t do too badly in some cases but in others it seemed to struggle. Hopefully the picture will be altogether more positive next week but we will have to see how things go. The general consensus was the pound had a poor couple of days early in the week before managing to improve to close it out. Will this pattern continue next week? We shall have to wait and see, so join us again next time for more answers.