With everyone’s minds on the festive season, it would be easy to forget about the currency markets altogether. However, we still have all the information you could want in this area.
An overview of the currency markets for December 21st – December 25th 2015
With no trading on Christmas Day, this would be a four-day week to look forward to. The pound started at 1.4912 against the US dollar, after a poor week last week. The first two days continued in the same vein, leading to a rate of 1.4876 by Tuesday night. Fortunately, the next two days went rather better, and eventually the pound finished on 1.4910 by Thursday evening. Still a loss overall, but at least it was a minor one.
Moving on, let’s see whether a similar pattern would be borne out against the euro. The pound opened proceedings on 1.3761 here, and once again the first two days were less than encouraging. By Tuesday evening, the pound had fallen to 1.3583. The next day was better, as the pound rose to 1.3642, but unfortunately there would be no better news than that. By the time Christmas Eve came to a close, the pound was standing at 1.3620.
Two bad days followed by two good ones would be the pattern seen against the Hong Kong dollar this week. This began with the pound on 11.560, and over the space of two days it fell to 11.533. This was only a small drop, but the good news was the pound was able to recover most of those losses over the next two days of the week. This meant it finished on 11.556 by Thursday evening. It had still experienced a loss, but at least it was marginal overall.
It would be more bad news than good this week against the New Zealand dollar. The British pound began trading here on 2.2238, before dropping steadily to 2.1782 over the first two days. This meant a significant loss – amounting to more than four-and-a-half cents all in all. Fortunately, the pound did bounce back on Wednesday, rising to 2.1987 in the process. We couldn’t hang onto that good news though, because the pound ended up dropping to 2.1863 by the time Thursday evening arrived. Thus the pound was still significantly lower in value compared to earlier in the week.
So, could the pound do any better against the Australian dollar? Here it began trading on Monday morning on 2.0925, and once again – unfortunately – the initial two-day period was not a good one. We ended up slipping back to 2.0522. We did then have the better day to follow, just as we had seen against the New Zealand dollar. This took the pound to 2.0620. However, the week was not destined to end on a good note, as the pound slipped back to 2.0531 by Thursday evening. This meant the pound had dropped in value by nearly four cents.
Notable events in the world of currency
Another steady fall against the Canadian dollar
Here too there was further bad news. The pound went from 2.0811 on Monday morning to 2.0679 as Christmas Eve came to a close.
Another loss, this time against the Swiss franc
It didn’t seem as though the British pound could do anything to achieve a good result last week. The currency dropped from 1.4818 to 1.4718 against the Swiss franc. At least here the drop was fairly small in nature.
More of the same against the Icelandic krona
Things were just as bad here as they were elsewhere. The pound opened the week on 194.545 and closed it on Thursday evening on 192.807.
So as Christmas finally arrived, the British pound did not arrive in good order. Instead, it had lost ground against many different currencies. It makes you wonder whether the short week in between Christmas and New Year would bring us anything different, or whether there would be anything better to look forward to. We will have the answers for you next time around.