The final week of November got underway last week but how good was it for the British pound on the currency markets? Let’s find out the answers now.
An overview of the currency markets for November 24th – November 29th 2013
As the week started the pound was standing at 1.6200 against the US dollar. Perhaps predictably this healthy rate soon dropped to 1.6188 on Monday before falling further still to 1.6160 the following day. However there was better news after this as the pound shot up to 1.6301 on Wednesday. This was encouraging but would it manage to stay around this level for the remainder of the week? For once the news was positive for the pound, as it edged up further over the remaining two days to close on 1.6344.
After that piece of good news would we now have more concerning the Euro? Here the pound started the week on 1.1984 before dropping over the next couple of days to close on 1.1928 on Tuesday. However the pattern we had seen against the US dollar was almost replicated here as the pound improved to 1.2017 on Thursday, before sliding back slightly to 1.2008 the following day.
A similar pattern was seen against the Hong Kong dollar as well. Here we started on 12.560 and this experienced the now familiar two day slide we have already seen elsewhere, resulting in a closing rate of 12.527 on Tuesday evening. The good news was things got better day by day after that, which meant the pound managed to finish up on 12.671 on Friday. Clearly even the Hong Kong dollar wasn’t strong enough to produce good results throughout the week, just as we had seen against the US dollar and the Euro.
So where would we be left against the New Zealand dollar and the Australian dollar? Let’s take the Kiwi dollar first, where the pound began the week on 1.9864. The first day saw a drop to 1.9714 before the pound edged back up to 1.9716. From then on it was all good news for the British pound, as it achieved another really good rate for the week. It finished on an excellent 2.0051 on Friday evening.
Finally let’s see whether the pound could achieve another good result against the Australian dollar. There seemed to be no reason why it couldn’t, and indeed we were proven to be right. The opening rate was 1.7672 and this increased slightly to 1.7673 the next day. In fact we saw increases throughout the week until Thursday, which produced a marginal drop. However the combination of another increase on Friday coupled with a good performance all week meant we still finished up on 1.7933 all told.
Notable events in the world of currency
Another piece of good news against the Canadian dollar
Here the pound managed to edge up from 1.7076 to 1.7284 over the week as a whole.
A slight improvement against the Swiss franc
Here the result was slighter, but it still produced another good outcome against the Swiss franc. The pound climbed from 1.4743 to 1.4767 over the week.
Three out of three thanks to our performance against the yuan
The Chinese currency couldn’t stop the pound from getting another good result here either. It climbed from 9.8735 to 9.9616.
As you can see it was definitely a good week all round for the British pound. We sometimes see a raft of good results but it is hard to remember a time when all five main results are improvements as well as the other three listed above. It’s good to know the British pound still sometimes has what it takes to make the most of a week like this one. We can never tell how long it will be before we have another week like this, and since we are going into December next week we shall be keeping a close eye on how things develop. The end of the year beckons.