An Unsteady Week for the British Pound

Welcome back to another fresh report on the British pound and its performance on the currency markets. We have a range of results ready to share.

An overview of the currency markets for July 6th – July 10th 2015

Here we are then with the opening rate for the British pound against the US dollar standing at 1.5623. The pound certainly didn’t have a great start as the first three days saw it lose value. By the time Wednesday night came along we had dropped back to 1.5368 – a fall of 0.0255 in all. Would this be how the remainder of the week would go as well? The good news was the answer was no, as the next two days were much better. In fact by the time the week of trading was over, the pound had got back to 1.5517, minimising the losses in the process.

But would it manage to do better against the euro? It opened trading against the European currency at 1.4080 and here it did have a better start. Over the first two days it managed to improve its standing to 1.4130 by the end of the week. However this was the exact opposite of the pattern we’d seen against the dollar. There we had done badly to start with and then picked up a better rhythm at the end of the week. Here we did the opposite and had three poor days at the end of the week instead. This meant we finished off on 1.3873 on Friday.

Which way would things go with the Hong Kong dollar then? The pound opened on 12.112 here and had three bad days to start things off. This led to a lower rate of 11.915 by Wednesday evening – a loss of 0.197 in all. The British pound then had two better days, just as it had against the US dollar. Here it managed to crawl back up to 12.027, which was a little lower than we’d started with but better all the same.

Over in New Zealand the pound started things off at 2.3346 before dropping back to 2.3220 on day one. Did this foretell a string of losses? Not exactly, because the pound then perked up to 2.3296 the next day. However the Kiwi dollar wasn’t done yet, and it pushed the pound back down to 2.2852 by Thursday evening. Luckily we were able to improve a little by the time the week was over. The pound finished up with a rate of 2.2988 on Friday night, although this was still well down on the opening rate from Monday morning.

Finally we have the Australian dollar to consider. The pound started things off on 2.0764 before dropping to 2.0745 on Monday evening. We then followed the pattern against the Kiwi dollar by perking up on Tuesday – to 2.0802 – before losing ground over the next couple of days. The low of 2.0646 on Thursday night was improved upon slightly as the pound finished the week on 2.0775 by Friday night.

Notable events in the world of currency

Better news against the Canadian dollar

The pound did well here, rising from 1.9657 to 1.9716 over the course of the week.

Not such good news against the Swiss franc

The British pound could not achieve a good result against this European currency. Instead it started on 1.4736 and dropped to 1.4517 by Friday night.

A drop against the Icelandic krona instead

Here the pound was in poor form as well, starting on 207.137 and falling to 205.056 by Friday night.

So we had trouble looking for some impressive results last week all in all. The best news we can find is that the pound managed to stem some of the early losses and regain some of them by the time the week was over. This was the best news of the day and it was something of a relief that the results were not any worse than they actually were.