A Challenging Week for the British Pound This Time

Welcome back to another report hot off the press for you. Let’s see whether the British pound really did have a rough time of it.

An overview of the currency markets for July 20th – July 24th 2015

Here we are then with another look at how the pound was doing last week. It started on 1.5593 against the US dollar and then dropped back over the next two days. This meant that by Tuesday night it had fallen back to 1.5553. We got better news on Wednesday though as the pound perked up to 1.5614. There was only a slight change in the next decimal point along on Thursday, and unfortunately the week finished off with another fall. This time it took the pound back to 1.5474 by Friday night.

So could we do better against the euro? Well, we started on 1.4320 on Monday morning and we had a better time here on Monday at least, rising to 1.4345 as a result. We did drop back on Tuesday though, which meant we finished the day on 1.4312. Where would we go from here? As it turned out we perked up once again to 1.4322 at the midweek point, before slumping into two days’ worth of losses to close out the week. This disappointment meant we finished up with a rate of 1.4146 on Friday night – losing out on 0.0174 over the week as a whole.

Next we have the Hong Kong dollar to contend with. We began with an opening rate of 12.085 before launching into two days’ worth of disappointment. This left us wondering whether we would improve on the 12.055 we had on Tuesday night. We did then have two better days though as the pound improved to 12.103 by Thursday evening. With just one day to go, which way would things go now? The answer was unfortunately down, as the pound finished on a poor 11.995 – definitely the worst day of the week.

Off to New Zealand now, where the New Zealand dollar was waiting to contend with the British pound. The pound began on 2.3799 and had those same two days of poor results at the beginning of the week. This meant the pound finished on 2.3558 by Tuesday night. We then got that midweek perk again, taking us to 2.3721 here. Unfortunately the changes in the situation with the New Zealand dollar can be a little dramatic at times, and it would be so here too. Thursday night saw a drop to 2.3391. Fortunately we were able to grab back some of the losses on Friday as the pound clawed its way back to 2.3581.

Finally let’s see whether there were any good results to be had against the Australian dollar. We opened on 2.1068 and actually managed three good days in a row here. This meant we finished up on 2.1147 by Wednesday night. However a dip to 2.1073 on Thursday made us wonder what Friday had in store. Fortunately it was better news – and possibly the best news of the week – as the pound soared to close on 2.1301.

Notable events in the world of currency

A slight rise against the Canadian dollar

Perhaps surprisingly the pound did okay here. It had four bad days out of five but the one good day meant it managed to get from 2.0237 to 2.0257 overall.

But a drop against the Swiss franc

There was a similar picture here in that there were more bad days than good. However this time the Swiss franc came out on top as the pound went from 1.4937 to 1.4870 across the week.

Another drop against the Icelandic krona

Here too we had bad news. The pound started on 210.942 and eventually dropped to 208.861.

As you can see it was a disappointing week on the whole. However perhaps we were due for a poor result since recent weeks have been far better. We shall keep an eye on what happens next.