Welcome back to another look at the pound’s progress on the currency markets. With exchange rates changing by the minute it is fascinating to look at the day by day progress of the British pound. This might just turn out to be an interesting week.
An overview of the currency markets for August 12th – August 16th 2013
As the week got underway the British pound stood at an opening rate of 1.5525 against the US dollar. Would this improve or go in the opposite direction instead? As it turned out the first couple of days saw a decrease in the exchange rate as the pound dipped to 1.5461. However things then improved over the rest of the week and by the time Friday evening arrived and trading closed for the week, the pound had managed to swing in the opposite direction. This meant it closed on a much healthier rate of 1.5634.
So, could much the same happen against the Euro as well? Let’s see. The opening rate here was 1.1609 but there was a rise to 1.1646 on day one before the pound fell back to 1.1633 on day two. However after this slightly different beginning things settled into a much better pattern for the remainder of the week. The pound closed on a better rate of 1.1919 by the time Friday rolled around.
The pound started with a rate of 12.040 against the Hong Kong dollar, and once again we weren’t surprised to see a fall over the first couple of days, this time sending the pound back to 11.991. However once again we saw an upswing from Wednesday onwards and this time it was a swing that saw us improve to 12.123 by the time trading was done for the week. This was getting to be a familiar pattern – but could it last for another two currencies as well?
Our fourth stop is as always with the New Zealand dollar. The opening rate for the pound was 1.9367 and we saw a drop on the first day before the pound recovered to close on 1.9333 on day two. However, things changed because instead of improving throughout the rest of the week, the pound had an up and down affair. The ups and downs were minimal though, and the end result was a closing rate of 1.9339 on Friday evening. This meant there was only a slight drop from the beginning of the week.
Finally let’s see whether the pattern against the Australian dollar would match that of the New Zealand dollar, or whether the pound would be able to continually improve against it instead. The good news was it fell in the latter category, starting on 1.6935 before dropping to 1.6883 just a day later. Once this dip was over it was nothing but good news for the remainder of the week. By the time Friday arrived the pound stood at 1.7040 against the Australian dollar.
Notable events in the world of currency
Good news against the Canadian dollar too
The pound started on 1.5977 here but improved to 1.6139 by Friday night.
Another piece of good news against the Swiss franc
Here the pound managed to go from a starting rate of 1.4291 to a healthier 1.4478 on Friday evening.
A big improvement against the Icelandic krona
The exchange rate really took a turn for the better here as the pound started on 183.952 and finished with a flourish on 188.394.
So it was a good week all in all for the British pound. It is always reassuring to see such results virtually the whole way across the board. It remains to be seen whether they will last into another week, but at least we can remain positive we will see more improvements. The pound has had a couple of very good weeks such as this one before, so we’ll see whether we can add another one into the mix next week.