Welcome back – we have some great news for you this week and more than a slice of drama too. Without further ado let’s get started.
An overview of the currency markets for December 1st – December 5th 2014
After a reasonable week last week, it was time to find out how the British pound would fare when beginning the first week in December. It opened on 1.5695 against the US dollar and had a good day to begin with, rising to 1.5729 in the process. However it would prove to be a very up-and-down week, with one good result followed by one bad one each time. As you might expect this ended up with a rather disappointing finish on 1.5685, although thankfully this was only marginally less than the British pound had started out with.
So would we see something similar where the euro was concerned? Here the pound opened the week on 1.2573 before edging up to 1.2615 on Monday night. It then dropped to 1.2600 on Tuesday before having two more good days. These resulted in Thursday’s closing rate amounting to 1.2721. Even though the pound did slip back a little on Friday, closing on 1.2688 as a result, we didn’t end up lower than the starting rate on Monday, so it was a good finish all in all.
Our third stop is in Hong Kong, where the pound began the week on 12.172. It didn’t hang around before improving on that though, because Monday’s night’s closing figure turned out to be 12.197. However the rest of the week dropped into the up-and-down affair we’d seen against the dollar earlier. This meant we ended up with a Friday night closing rate of 12.158.
Over in New Zealand the picture against the Kiwi dollar can be very different from the one we see in other parts of the world. Would the same be true this week? The opening rate was 1.9966 and this improved by a small amount on day one, as the pound edged up a little to 1.9979. Would we break the two dollar barrier? Indeed we would, and it happened the very next day. The pound closed on Tuesday with a rate of 2.0015, which made us wonder how the rest of the week would go. The good news was it went mostly in our favour, with the high point coming on Thursday when the pound finished on 2.0211. We dropped back to 2.0210 to finish the week but this was hardly a big loss.
Finally let’s explore the pound’s fortunes against the Australian dollar. The week opened on 1.8416 before edging up to 1.8520 on Monday evening. Indeed, we actually saw a series of gradual rises take place throughout the week. By the time Friday night arrived the British pound had finished up with a rate of 1.8734 – quite a rise for just one week.
Notable events in the world of currency
A slight drop against the Canadian dollar
For all the good results we’ve seen elsewhere so far, we wouldn’t have the same again here. Instead the pound dropped slightly from 1.7888 to 1.7872 against the Canadian dollar.
Better news against the Swiss franc
Here we ended up with better news, as the pound went from 1.5111 on Monday morning to 1.5253 on Friday night.
More good news against the Icelandic krona
Here the pound did well too, rising from 193.950 on Monday to 194.694 by Friday evening.
So all in all it had been a good start to the final month of the year for the British pound. We have a long way to go yet until 2015 dawns though, so anything could happen in between now and then. We shall be monitoring the exchange rates closely to see whether the pound manages to get more excellent results as December presses on, so stay tuned and visit regularly to get the latest news from the currency markets.