Welcome back to another currency report, which takes us into the first full week of March. What would we discover as we progressed through the week?
An overview of the currency markets for March 5th – March 12th, 2018
The British pound got underway this week with an exchange rate of 1.3784 against the US dollar. After two encouraging days to begin the week, it was soon in far better shape on 1.3919 on Tuesday evening. It did experience a midweek dip though, to 1.3871 on Wednesday. It was far from finished though, with another rise due the following day that took it to 1.3883. It couldn’t maintain that pace, but even though the pound dropped slightly to 1.3826 to finish the week, this was still better than we’d started on.
Would we see something similar occur against the euro as well? We opened the week on 1.1195 here, before climbing to 1.1227 on day one. However, we had a different picture here, with two less appealing days following on from that. Wednesday’s closing rate therefore was not as good as we might have hoped, as the pound stalled on 1.1171. Fortunately for the British pound, things did improve from there, and remained in good shape for the rest of the week. With a closing effort of 1.1249 on Friday, we were indeed better at the end of the week than we were at the beginning.
We had a mixed result overall against the Hong Kong dollar. However, as we often see with mixed weeks, the trend over the week went in our favour. We opened on 10.792 and did well on Monday and Tuesday, rising to 10.903 in the process. We then dipped to 10.869 before rising once again to 10.882. With another drop to 10.841 on Friday, you can see how it was never certain how things would pan out. However, the trend was good overall, and that is what mattered most.
We never know what to expect when it comes to the New Zealand dollar, and the up and down trend seen this week bore that out more clearly than we’ve seen in a while. The pound started on 1.9048 before rising to 1.9115 on Monday night. However, just 24 hours later, we were back to where we’d begun. The good news was we managed to experience two more great days following that, and this took us to a more appreciable 1.9115 on Thursday. However, one final dip sent us below the opening rate on Monday, which meant we were lower on 1.9046 overall.
Finally, we have the Australian dollar to consider. Would we perform just the same here as we had against the Kiwi dollar, or was something else in store? We started the week on 1.7784 and once again had a good start, rising to 1.7836 by Monday night. But a dip the following day meant we went below Monday’s opener, falling to 1.7764. The remainder of the week went along much the same pattern as we had seen against the Kiwi dollar, so while we hoped for better, we ended up losing some ground by falling to 1.7742.
Notable events in the world of currency
Better news against the Canadian dollar
Here the pound managed to climb from 1.7754 to 1.7828 this week – a good result given what we have seen in other locations.
A steady rise against the Swiss franc
This was the big surprise of the week. The pound began trading on 1.2888 but five good days took us to a much higher rate of 1.3156 by Friday night.
Back to disappointment against the Icelandic krona
We didn’t get good news everywhere, as we saw here. The pound started on 138.575 before falling overall to 138.286, despite three good days out of five.
So, it was an interesting week if not an excellent one for the British currency. It will be fascinating to see if we get more of the same in our next currency report next week.