Here we are again with another selection of the main results seen on the currency markets last week. Would the British pound gain or lose against the major world currencies?
An overview of the currency markets for September 16th– September 20th 2013
Let’s kick off by exploring the exchange rate between the British pound and the US dollar. The opening rate was 1.5829 and we had a good start as the pound rose to 1.5929 – adding a cent – in just one day. A drop on Tuesday was replaced by an improvement to 1.5975 on Wednesday. The question of whether we would break through the $1.60 barrier or not was soon answered as we did just that on Thursday. In fact the week finished on a positive note as the pound closed things out on 1.6019.
It was a good week against the dollar but would the same be seen against the Euro? We opened on 1.1906 here and added on a little improvement to close on 1.1926 on Monday. Just as we saw against the US dollar, a fall on Tuesday was shored up by a better result the day after, taking us to 1.1964. However this would be the best result we would get, because the pound finished up falling to close on 1.1853 by Friday night.
The opening rate against the Hong Kong dollar was 12.274 and once again the week started in a positive manner. Monday evening closed on 12.351 for the pound. A similar Tuesday to Wednesday pattern was seen here too, with a drop followed by a significant improvement. However, would we now lose ground as we had against the Euro, or improve as we had against the US dollar? The answer – thankfully – was the latter, as the pound rose to finish on 12.419 against the Hong Kong dollar.
Let’s move on and see whether the pound would have a good week against the New Zealand dollar now. It opened on 1.9434 but dropped to close Monday evening on 1.9400. The first half of the week was edgy and saw the pound finish on 1.9432 on Wednesday night. Unfortunately it then lost more ground and Friday night saw a disappointing closing rate of 1.9147.
So would we drop by a similar amount against the Australian dollar as well? Our opening rate here was 1.7121 and this dropped to 1.6992 on Monday before recovering to 1.7004 the next day. As was the case against various other currencies throughout the week, we saw more than our share of ups and downs on this occasion too. Finally we managed to settle on 1.7015 on Friday night – better than we’d seen on Thursday, when we’d closed on 1.6937.
Notable events in the world of currency
British pound improves against Canadian dollar
Here the pound managed to increase its standing from 1.6357 to 1.6474.
However there is a loss against the Swiss franc
It wasn’t all good news though, because the pound fell from 1.4735 to 1.4615 over the course of the week.
Slight improvement against the Icelandic krona
We recovered here to go from 191.681 to 191.657 as the week closed.
As you can see it was a week of mixed results. Moreover we saw better results over the first half of the week against some currencies, followed by weaker ones towards the end of the week. This is quite common in some cases and it was certainly a popular path to follow this week.
It wasn’t an all good or all bad week either though. Sometimes there is a clear pattern among the results but this was not the case this time around. We saw some improvements and some weaker results compared with last week, giving us a more realistic picture of how the currency markets sometimes pan out.
Perhaps the British pound will achieve a more robust and consistent result next week – we shall have to wait and see.