This week is filled with good news, tempered with the odd let down here and there. However, the let downs were small enough not to matter once the bigger picture came into view.
An overview of the currency markets for January 21st – January 25th, 2019
As we begin the new week, the British pound starts at 1.2877 against the US dollar. From there, it progressed through three very promising days to take us to an impressive exchange rate of 1.3074 by Wednesday evening. We would imagine a slight dip at some point, and Thursday produced this by sending the pound back to 1.3066. However, Friday reserved the best result of the entire week, delivering an exchange rate of 1.3194 – significantly higher than the week had opened with.
Opening on 1.1332 against the euro last week, the pound had a better week there than we had seen just recently too. In fact, every day turned into a good day in this part of the world. The British pound managed to close on 1.1563 by the end of the week. That equated to over two cents more in value than it had begun the week with. That would be impressive to achieve next week too, but perhaps that is too much to hope for. We shall see.
Our third stop is the same as always, with the Hong Kong dollar next in line to face the British pound. Opening trading here on 10.099, the pound progressed in much the same fashion as it did against the American dollar. The first three days brought plenty of good news, with the pound rising to 10.257. A slight dip then occurred to knock the pound back to 10.251, before finally achieving the best rate of the week on the last day of the week. This was beginning to become a pattern which, in this case, delivered a closing exchange rate of 10.352.
Things changed pattern slightly against the New Zealand dollar, although there was still plenty to appreciate here. Starting the week on 1.9091, the pound then progressed steadily to reach 1.9316 by the time Thursday rolled around. With four strong days in a row, it was easy to assume a fifth day of the same style would be in store on Friday. Not so – the pound dipped to close on 1.9285, although this still gave us a significant advantage to appreciate across the entire week.
Very often, the pound achieves something similar against the Australian dollar as it does against the New Zealand dollar. The same was true here as well, with the pound doing remarkably well over the first four days of the week. Opening trading on 1.7968 last week, it then progressed to achieve a rate of 1.8422 by Thursday. That meant a slight drop to 1.8364 on Friday was far from enough to wipe out all the gains made thus far.
Notable events in the world of currency
Another sharp rise against the Canadian dollar
This time we saw the pound shoot up from 1.7084 to 1.7443 over the entire week, with that marginal drop on Friday built in as well.
Another strong showing against the Swiss franc
The pound was clearly ready to take on most other currencies last week. In this case, it climbed from 1.2808 to reach a closing rate on Friday night of 1.3107.
A different pattern against the Icelandic krona
The pound took on a different performance here, with rises and falls occurring throughout the week. However, the overall performance was good enough to take it from 156.134 to 157.759 this week.
So, there was plenty of good news last week, as we can see from these exchange rates. In fact, the news could be split into good and excellent rather than good and bad, which is often the case. Rarely have we seen such an impressive week.
Will it be followed with another of the same kind next week? Time will tell, but we have a feeling that may not be quite so easy.