Here we go again with a look at how the pound performed in the days leading up to the latter part of October. It would be an interesting week, all in all.
An overview of the currency markets for October 19th – October 23rd 2015
The week got underway with the British pound standing at 1.5443 against the US dollar. We had a nice strong start, rising to 1.5488 to begin with. Unfortunately the next couple of days weren’t as good. We ended up sliding back to 1.5449 by Wednesday evening. Thursday was better, as the pound edged up to 1.5467, but with just one day to go, could it remain in a stronger position? The answer soon turned out to be no. The pound ended up sliding to 1.5404 on Friday night – its weakest position of the entire week.
With dramas of all kinds in the Eurozone at the moment, it is perhaps not surprising the pound has achieved some good results here recently. Would this week turn out to produce the same? It opened on 1.3594 before rising to 1.3666 on Monday night. Although it fell to 1.3601 on Tuesday, this was the one and only bad day of the entire week. From that moment on the pound was firmly in charge. By Friday evening it stood on a much higher rate, closing on 1.3897 as a result.
We had a similarly good result to open the week against the Hong Kong dollar as well. We managed to rise from the opening rate of 11.968 to 12.003 on Monday, before heading south once again. We dropped to 11.973 by Wednesday night, although this was better than Monday’s opener had been. With a rise on Thursday tempered by a fall on Friday, the pound couldn’t quite manage to close out the week in good condition though. Instead it struggled to finish on 11.938.
Next up is our usual stop to see how the pound is doing against the New Zealand dollar. The opening rate was 2.2752 and this soon improved to 2.2779 by Monday evening. It would be a week of ups and downs though, and unfortunately overall we had more downs than ups. This meant that by the time Friday evening arrived and the markets closed for the week, the pound was down to 2.2661. At least it could have been much worse.
Finally we can see whether the pound would achieve anything of note against the Australian dollar. We began on 2.1280 here, and in terms of the balance between rises and falls throughout the separate days, we managed to get more rises than falls. There were three good days balancing out the two not-so-good ones. Unfortunately it wasn’t enough to ensure the pound was in good shape to avoid dropping in value for the week as a whole. Friday night’s closing rate stalled on 2.1193.
Notable events in the world of currency
Better news for the British pound against the Canadian dollar
Here at least we had some good news. The pound started trading on 1.9963 on Monday and ended on 2.0127 by Friday night.
Much better for the pound against the Swiss franc too
Here we did even better – rising from 1.4694 on Monday to 1.4999 by Friday evening.
Another great performance against the Icelandic krona
If we wanted another good result here we certainly got it. The pound began the week on 192.793 and closed it on 196.509.
It’s good to know the pound managed to achieve some good results last week, even though they did seem few and far between at times. It certainly made a good start in many places, but there were times later in the week when it just couldn’t maintain that early good start.
Of course, the position of any world currency depends largely on what is going on in that country and in other places around the world. Thus the pound will always be buffeted by a variety of circumstances, good or bad.