Here we are with the latest news regarding the currency markets, and more properly, the situation the British pound is in. Let’s see how it did last week.
An overview of the currency markets for May 23rd – May 27th 2016
Here we go then, as the British pound began trading this week on 1.4568 against the US dollar. It dipped alarmingly to 1.4481 on day one, but we then had three strong days in a row to take away those feelings of uncertainty. As such, by the time we reached Thursday evening, the pound had enjoyed a soaring performance that had taken it all the way up to 1.4700. This was quite an improvement when compared to where we had started this week. Unfortunately, Friday did not bring good news, and the pound closed out against the US dollar on 1.4647. However, this was still a notable improvement compared to where it had been at the start of the week.
Moving on, let’s see whether the news would be as good against the euro too. It soon became clear that Monday was not our day, as the pound dipped from 1.2985 to 1.2912. However, we did then have a better period of trading, even though it only lasted for two days here, and not the three-day period we had seen against the US dollar. That took the pound up to 1.3170 by Wednesday evening. While we didn’t see any more improvements over the final two days, the pound seemed to have done enough to have a good week overall. This meant it finished trading on 1.3115 on Friday night.
Our third stop is to see how the pound performed this week against the Hong Kong dollar. As it turned out, the pattern followed the one we had seen against the US dollar. This meant we started on 11.315 before dropping to close out Monday night on 11.247. We then had those three good days from then on, taking the pound to 11.416 by Thursday evening – a very good improvement. We did drop back to 11.375 by Friday night, but that still meant the pound was out ahead for the week.
So would we manage to produce more of the same against the New Zealand dollar as well? Things can be very different here, but fortunately we managed to do well overall. We’re not spoiling it to say that, because while we dropped from 2.1527 on Monday morning to 2.1355 on Monday night, we then had the same three excellent days we had seen in other places. Here, though, they were magnified, with a rise to 2.1838 overall. Even though this fell to 2.1753 by Friday night, the pound had still added on over two cents across the entire week.
Finally, let’s see whether that pattern was continued in one other place, against the Australian dollar. We began trading on 2.0152 before falling to 2.0068. We then improved to 2.0384 on Tuesday night. However, the pattern was different here because that was the only good day we had all week. The good news was we did enough on that one day to avoid an overall drop. By Friday night, we’d only slid back to 2.0306.
Notable events in the world of currency
A tiny improvement against the Canadian dollar
This really was a small improvement, as the pound went from 1.9094 to 1.9096 this week.
More good news as the pound went up against the Swiss franc
It was hard to find anything negative to say about last week, as the pound climbed from 1.4443 here to 1.4516.
Another great improvement against the Icelandic krona
Let’s finish with more good news, this time against the Icelandic currency. The pound began on 181.458 and ended the week on 182.834.
So we can see there is plenty of good news here to report this week. The question is whether this will continue, or whether any uncertainty surrounding the referendum will affect the value of the pound, either in the short- or the long-term. Only time will provide the answer to that one.