Welcome back to the latest currency report on the progress (or lack of) for the British pound on the currency markets. Let’s see how it did through the middle of March.
An overview of the currency markets for March 13th – March 17th 2017
After a mixed bag of results last week, it’s time to see whether the British pound could improve this time around. It began on 1.2155 against the US dollar this week, before rising to 1.2220 on Monday evening. Despite a dip to 1.2140 on Tuesday, the remainder of the week turned out to be very encouraging. Three good results followed, bringing the pound up to 1.2360 by Friday night, and confirming the improvement since Monday – a very good one, too.
So, could we do just as well against the euro? The pound began on 1.1461 here, before dipping to 1.1420 just two days later. This was not the start we had hoped for, although there was still time to rectify things. We managed to improve to 1.1519 by Thursday evening, and while we fell to 1.1511 on Friday night, this was still better than the rate we had started on.
Our third stop is with the Hong Kong dollar, and here too we started encouragingly on 9.4403, before rising to 9.4895. This alone was a good day, and gave us a cushion to fall back on for the rest of the week. So, while we dipped to 9.4329 on Tuesday, we then enjoyed three very good days – much better, in fact, than we had hoped for. By Friday night, the pound was worth 9.5952 against the Hong Kong currency, which was a significant improvement.
We never know what to expect against the New Zealand dollar, so while we had a good week last time around, what would happen this week? We began trading on 1.7590 before rising to 1.7631 on Monday evening. This was, however, followed by two poor days, reducing the pound to 1.7545 in the process. Thursday was better, taking us to 1.7683, before we dropped back again, this time to close out the week on 1.7633.
After a reasonably encouraging week so far, we did not end things well with our performance against the Australian dollar. Here, we began on 1.6154 before falling every single day of this week. This was disappointing to say the least, giving us a poor performance that led to a closing rate of 1.6047 on Friday night. At least the overall loss was not as large as it could have been.
Notable events in the world of currency
A slight rise against the Canadian currency
The pound did well against the Canadian dollar this week, taking its opening rate of 1.6414 and pushing ahead to close on 1.6457.
A slight difference against the Swiss franc
Here, the difference was very slight indeed. The pound started trading on 1.2312 before edging up slightly to 1.2315 this week.
Better news against the Icelandic krona
We did well here, as the pound climbed from its opening rate of 131.426 and reached 134.170 by Friday night.
As you can see, the pound did reasonably well this week. It did not climb against all the currencies, but it managed to put in a respectable performance. The one real disappointment was against the Australian dollar, where it did not manage to achieve one notable rise throughout the entire week.
It is always hard to identify which currencies the pound will do well against, and which ones it will struggle with. Perhaps as time goes on, we will see whether an overall pattern becomes clear, or whether the pound will simply have some weeks that are better than others. The latter is far more likely to be the case, especially with the uncertainty of negotiating a withdrawal from the EU soon.
Suffice to say we will be following its progress closely, and we will keep you apprised of all the most vital changes in the exchange rate between the pound and the other major currencies of the world.