Here we are again with yet another week of currency movements on the markets. Let’s see how the British pound would fare.
An overview of the currency markets for August 10th – August 14th 2015
As the week got underway the pound was worth 1.5516 against the US dollar. This immediately dropped to 1.5499 on Monday evening though, making us wonder whether there was a bad week in store. However nothing could be further from the truth. In reality the pound then went through four very good days. It rose to 1.5596 on Tuesday before continuing to rise to close things out on 1.5634 by Friday evening. Overall then, despite having four days’ worth of improvements, the actual change was a fairly minor one.
So could we do something similar against the euro? Well, the pound started on 1.4182 here before dropping to 1.4142 by Monday night. Unfortunately we didn’t then see improvements continuing over the next four days as we had against the US dollar. Instead we only saw an improvement on Thursday. By then it was too late and by Friday night the pound was sitting on a disappointing 1.3995. This meant we had lost nearly two euros’ worth of value over the course of the week – something we would be looking at improving on next time around.
Over to Hong Kong now to see whether the pound could improve its standing against the Hong Kong dollar. It opened proceedings on 12.028 before dropping to 12.016 that night. Clearly Monday was not a good day anywhere in the world for the pound. However here we managed to replicate the good news we’d had against the US dollar, with four good results from that moment on. This meant we finished on 12.125 by Friday night. This was quite good all in all and represented our second good result of the week out of the three currencies we have looked at so far.
The pound started on 2.3609 against the New Zealand dollar before dropping to 2.3572 on Monday evening. It then perked up to 2.3795 on Tuesday before dropping to 2.3565 on Wednesday. This up and down pattern continued for the remaining two days but fortunately the pound finished on an up, reaching 2.3839 in the process. This was a pretty good outcome considering where we had started from. It meant we’d added on 0.0230 overall.
Finally we have the performance against the Australian dollar to contend with. As the week got started the pound was on 2.1002 but this went up over the course of the first two days, reaching 2.1292 by Tuesday evening. After a drop on Wednesday and a rise on Thursday, the week ended with another drop. However the closing rate was 2.1164, meaning the pound had once again improved over the week as a whole.
Notable events in the world of currency
Good news against the Canadian dollar
The British pound did well here, rising from its opening rate of 2.0299 and finishing on 2.0393.
A very slight drop against the Swiss franc
There was no good news here, but at least the losses were minimal. The pound went from 1.5229 to 1.5220 this week.
Another drop, this time against the Icelandic krona
Here too there was a drop, as the pound started on 208.410 but slipped back to 205.267 by Friday night.
So the week was reasonably good all in all, although the pound did lose some ground here and there. For the most part it managed to perform well against these currencies, although it didn’t do well against the euro. Fortunately where there were losses for the British pound they were only mild ones.
It remains to be seen whether things improve next week or whether the outcome is much the same. As the week goes on we will consider how the pound faces up to the various other currencies and we’ll bring you the results on the usual day.