It hardly seems like five minutes since we were welcoming in the New Year, and here we are at the end of trading in January already. How did things proceed in those last few days of the month?
An overview of the currency markets for January 27th – January 31st 2014
Let’s see if the British pound could get the better of the US dollar this week, shall we? The opening rate was 1.6508 and this had improved by the day’s end, rising to 1.6554. We saw another improvement the following day too (to 1.6587) before things started turning sour. Wednesday saw the first drop of the week as the pound tumbled to 1.6552, and by the time we had gone through a further two days of trading we were back to a disappointing 1.6455. This was lower than the original starting point so the dollar managed to get the upper hand here.
It might be a different story against the Euro though. Here the pound began with a rate of 1.2061 and improved to 1.2120 by the end of day one. Again we had another two good days to complete the first half of the week, sending the exchange rate up to 1.2163. We then saw a dip on Thursday as the rate dropped to 1.2138, before recovering to close things out on 1.2175.
The pound began on 12.815 against the Hong Kong dollar and once again we saw a week of two halves, although the first half turned out to be two days here instead of three. The highest rate was 12.878 on Tuesday, before things started going south. The pound gradually slid back over the remaining three days of trading, which meant we ended up closing on a disappointing 12.780 on Friday evening.
Where would we stand against the New Zealand dollar then? Would we end up with a lower closing rate here as well, or could we achieve something a little better here? We opened on 1.9972 and immediately managed to break through the two dollar barrier, closing at 2.0072 on Monday night. This slid back a little to 2.0069 on Tuesday, and then we fell below the two dollar barrier to 1.9992 the following day. Could we get back above it again? The answer was yes – and it happened the next day. Indeed, by Friday we were looking at a closing rate of 2.0310 for the week – a very good result.
Finally we have the Australian dollar to evaluate. Could we repeat the excellent performance the pound had put in against the Kiwi dollar? We opened on 1.8954 but the first couple of days did not go our way. This led to a closing rate of 1.8855 on Tuesday. We did then begin to recover but the next few days were not without their struggles. Eventually we finished on 1.8890 on Friday evening.
Notable events in the world of currency
An improvement against the Canadian dollar
The Canadian dollar couldn’t withstand the pound this week. The latter managed to move up from 1.8261 to 1.8422 throughout the week.
Another improvement against the Swiss franc too
Here the pound managed to improve from 1.4782 to finish on 1.4877 as the week went on.
But a slip occurred against the Icelandic krona
A disappointing result occurred here as the pound fell from 191.231 to close on 188.854.
As you can see we had a real mix of results last week. If the pound did well it seemed to do really well, whereas it slipped in some areas and produced disappointing results there. We tend to see this quite a lot – it is rare that you will see a good raft of results right across the board.
So many events worldwide affect the outcome of the exchange rates that we see a real mix of outcomes from week to week. Rest assured we shall be back next week to see what happens next.