Challenging times seem to be facing us on the currency markets. Would this week show this to be the case, or would the British pound actually make a better go of things?
An overview of the currency markets for March 16th – March 20th 2015
Let’s begin with the usual head-to-head between the British pound and the US dollar. Last week was not a good performance for the pound, but at least it managed to start on the right note here. It rose from a starting position of 1.4780 and finished the day on 1.4804. However it then dropped back to 1.4771 and further to 1.4650 on Wednesday before improving throughout the next couple of days. This meant that while the midweek point was bad news, the pound did get the better of the dollar in the end, finishing on 1.4853 in the process.
We ended up starting off in a similar manner against the euro as well. The pound began the week on 1.3981 before rising to 1.4023 by the close of the day. However this was followed by a couple of poor performances as the pound dropped back to 1.3831 by Wednesday night. While the pound did manage to improve slightly on Thursday it was not enough to finish off a good week. Instead it dropped further to finish the week on 1.3783 on Friday night – considerably lower than it had been on Monday morning.
Would we see something similar against the Hong Kong dollar as well though? The week opened on 11.480 for the pound and it did at least manage to improve slightly on Monday, although it only finished up on 11.495 by the end of the day. Clearly this week was going to be something of a struggle. This became clearer still when we realised the exchange rate sank to 11.366 by Wednesday evening. However things got better on Thursday as the pound rose to 11.533, and despite a drop to 11.525 on Friday night this was still better than we’d begun the week with.
Our fourth stop is the Kiwi dollar in New Zealand. We started the week on 2.0128 here before suffering through three days of losses, taking us to 2.0001 by Wednesday night. Would we drop below the 2.00 level? Actually no, because the pound then rose to 2.0121 by Thursday evening. Unfortunately we didn’t manage to save the best until last, because the pound sank to 1.9849 on Friday night.
Finally we have just one more stop to go – this time in Australia. The pound opened proceedings against the dollar here on 1.9293, and it had a pretty good start to the week too – rising to 1.9347 in the process. After that it was an up-and-down affair, much as we had seen against other currencies this week. However Friday was very much down and that meant the pound would end up slightly worse off overall, ending things on 1.9280 today.
Notable events in the world of currency
Very little difference for the pound versus the Canadian dollar
It’s not often you see a tiny difference from Monday to Friday, but this was one of those weeks. The pound began on 1.882139 against the Canadian dollar and finished on 1.882150.
A drop against the Swiss franc
From a marginal difference to a more pronounced one – the pound began on 1.4887 against the Swiss franc and finished up on 1.4544 this week.
A drop against the Icelandic krona
We saw a fall here too this week, as the pound began on 205.788 and fell to 205.153 by Friday night.
So all in all it was not the best of weeks for the British pound. Perhaps though it was slightly better in places than it had been the week before. The main question is what will be awaiting us next week as we see whether the pound is able to manage a better performance. Whatever the case may be we will be here next week to reveal all.