This is the first week that would be affected by the Easter weekend, with Good Friday putting a stop to trading that day. How would things progress before that point arrived though?
An overview of the currency markets for March 30th – April 3rd 2015
Here we see how the British pound performed as March gave way to April. It began the week on 1.4875 against the US dollar and finished the day down on 1.4799 – not the best start to the week. It would be a shortened week too, as Good Friday kicked off the Easter weekend. The final day of March saw another drop for the pound as it reached another low point – this time on 1.4793. The losses had slowed but would they switch to the other direction? Another loss on Wednesday saw the pound drop further to 1.4763 but we did at least stall those losses on the last day before the long weekend. The pound managed to crawl back up to 1.4803 on Thursday evening.
So with those disappointing results in mind, could we manage to do a little better against the euro? Our opening rate here was 1.3702 and here too we experienced a drop on Monday, taking the pound down to 1.3646. There was at least better news on Tuesday, as the pound rose again to 1.3749. Unfortunately this was not the beginning of a series of rises for the pound. Instead the next two days before Good Friday beckoned saw the pound drop on both days. This meant we finished up on 1.3668 and that was disappointing to say the least.
Moving on to the Hong Kong dollar, the pound started the week on 11.534 here. It soon became clear however that the bad news was travelling with the British pound last week. Monday night saw a closing rate of 11.476 while the following day saw an even lower rate of 11.470. They may have been small losses but they were still losses. Wednesday closed lower still on 11.445 but at least we managed to rectify things a little with a rise to 11.475 on Thursday. It didn’t make back all the losses but it did make a slight difference.
So over to New Zealand now to see if the pound could do better against the Kiwi dollar. The pound opened on 1.9651 and actually did okay on Monday, rising to 1.9673 in the process. The good news continued throughout the next couple of days as well. By Wednesday night the pound was on a much better rate of 1.9865. We did see a loss on Thursday though that took the pound back to 1.9818, although this was still way better than the performances the pound had managed elsewhere in the world.
Could the pound mirror its performance against the Kiwi dollar by doing well against the Aussie dollar too? It began the week on 1.9101 and immediately pushed up to 1.9320 on Monday, so things were looking up. Another rise to 1.9461 came on Tuesday before a slight drop to 1.9427 came on Wednesday. We weren’t sure what to expect on Thursday but as it turned out it was the best news of the week. The pound closed impressively on 1.9604.
Notable events in the world of currency
A good performance against the Canadian dollar
The pound managed to rise from 1.8607 to 1.8716 over the course of the four days.
A drop against the Swiss franc
Bad news here though as the pound fell from 1.4354 to 1.4215 across the shortened week.
Another drop against the Icelandic krona
Here too the pound didn’t do well last week. It started on 202.214 and fell back to close on 201.382.
As we can see it was a mixed week of sorts for the British pound. The question now is whether the second shortened week of Easter would produce much the same outcome. Could the pound change things up and manage to perform better, even with the election looming in a few short weeks’ time?