Here we are again with another week’s worth of results for you. Without further delay let’s dive right in.
An overview of the currency markets for December 8th – December 12th 2014
As always our first stop this week will be with the US dollar. The British pound began the week on 1.5685 but soon lost ground, falling to close the day on 1.5625. Two good days followed this though, taking the pound to 1.5691 in the process. With just two more days to go it was difficult to tell whether the pound would be better or worse off than the opening rate on Monday morning. A fall on Thursday, to 1.5678, made us wonder. However the best news came last with a week-long high of 1.5709. We definitely saved the best until last here!
Some weeks produce clear up-and-down patterns, and it turned out this would be the case against the euro. We began on 1.2688 and rose to 1.2746. A drop to 1.2655 on Tuesday was then reversed the following day, as the currency rose to 1.2662 again. One more drop followed by another rise took us to 1.2618 by the end of the week. Unfortunately this meant we were still worse off than we’d been on Monday morning, giving the euro the upper hand for this week at least.
Would we experience something similar against the Hong Kong dollar, or would a different story play out here? We opened on 12.158 but the dollar clearly had the upper hand for the first day at least, sending the pound down to 12.111. The next couple of days were better for the pound and we finished up with an exchange rate of 12.163 by Wednesday evening. Thursday saw another dip to 12.154 but eventually Friday night rolled around and with it came the best rate of the week for the pound – 12.178.
Not too bad so far then, but we now have the New Zealand dollar to consider. The pound started on 2.0210 before shooting up to close the first day on 2.0442. We then had a few weaker days that took us back to 2.0047 by Thursday night, so it looked unlikely that the pound would regain its good starting point. It did however achieve a boost on the final day of the week, closing on 2.0121 as a result.
Our last stop this week is with the Australian dollar. Here we began on 1.8734 and had two promising days to begin with. By Tuesday night we’d improved to 1.8860. Even though we dropped back to 1.8798 on Wednesday we were clearly saving the best performance for the end of the week. Indeed, by Friday night the pound had managed to soar to 1.8998 – about as close to the 1.90 mark as you could hope to get.
Notable events in the world of currency
A great performance against the Canadian dollar
We wanted a good result here and we certainly got one. The pound began on 1.7872 and by the time Friday came we had improved to 1.8191.
Not such good news against the Swiss franc
Rather than improving here, the pound ended up sliding from 1.5253 to 1.5154 against the Swiss franc.
Another poor result against the Icelandic krona
Even with the less well-known currencies the pound wasn’t always achieving the best results. When it came to the krona it slid from 194.694 to 194.211 by the time the week was over.
Even though there were some disappointments mixed into the results this week, the British pound did also manage to have some great results elsewhere. This is the most common picture although of course we do also have some almost unanimously good or bad weeks mixed in as well.
As we edge ever closer to Christmas and the New Year we wonder how well the pound will do over the course of the holiday period. We’ll make sure you get all the news very soon.