The British pound definitely performs better in some quarters than in others this week, as you are about to find out.
An overview of the currency markets for November 16th – November 20th 2015
As the week began, the British pound began trading on 1.5223 against the US dollar. This dropped to 1.5192 on Monday before recovering to 1.5205 the following day. The pound then managed to have another couple of good days before the rot set in just before the weekend. This meant that it reached 1.5271 on Thursday night and then slipped back to 1.5246 by Friday. All in all though, it was still a better finish than we’d expected.
Over to Europe now and a look at whether the pound was in a position to do well against the euro. The first four days were definitely very encouraging as far as the pound was concerned. It opened trading on Monday morning on 1.4143, and the exchange rate improved throughout the week until it reached 1.4289 on Thursday night. With just one day to go, you can probably imagine what happened next – a drop for the pound. It was only a small one though, taking it to 1.4265 and ensuring it finished in much better shape compared to Monday morning.
Our third stop is the Hong Kong dollar, where the pound began the week at 11.799. We had a bit of a mixed week here, as the first day didn’t go in our favour. Instead we ended up on 11.775 by the day’s end. Next though, things did improve as we steadily worked our way up to 11.836 by the time Thursday evening rolled around. After those three days looking so good, we managed to slip a little on the last day of the week. This meant we ended up falling back to 11.816 by the last day. However this was still better than we’d started with on Monday morning.
So, could we achieve something similar where the New Zealand dollar was concerned? We opened on 2.3312 here and edged up to 2.3454 by Monday night. However we lost ground again the next day before climbing back to 2.3548 on Wednesday night. This put us at the best rate for the entire week – which was unfortunately a couple of days too soon. By the time Friday evening arrived we were settled on 2.3246, which was marginally lower than we’d opened on.
Would our position against the Australian dollar turn out to be something similar? We began the week on 2.1323 here, before rising to 2.1408 on Monday evening. But we then lost our footing the next day, just as we had against the Kiwi dollar. This took us to 2.1319 before we climbed back to 2.1441 on Wednesday night. Yet we just didn’t have the power to hold that position over the next two days. This meant we closed on 2.1148 this week.
Notable events in the world of currency
A marginal improvement against the Canadian currency
The Canadian dollar was knocked back by the pound last week. The British currency began on 2.0255 and closed on 2.0298.
Another good result against the Swiss franc
Here the pound began trading on 1.5254 before rising to 1.5469 by the end of the week.
A third great outcome against the Icelandic krona
The pound got another good result here, by climbing from 198.408 to 200.758 over the whole of last week.
We know that some weeks are better than others as far as the currency markets are concerned. However we also know there can be some disappointing results mixed in with the good ones.
This was very much the way this particular week on the currency markets panned out. The good news was we have had far worse weeks than this, where every result was a disappointment. Whether next week will turn out to be one of those, or whether it will be good news all the way, remains to be seen. We will let you know how things turn out.