It’s time once again to check out the currency markets to see whether the British pound could do what it takes to get good results against a wealth of other currencies. Let’s see whether that would be the case here – or whether there would be more disappointing results beckoning.
An overview of the currency markets for November 23rd – November 27th 2015
The British pound stood at 1.5246 at the beginning of the week, but it did not get off to the best of starts. Instead it dropped back to 1.5133 after a day of trading, and things did not get any better on Tuesday either. Instead it dropped back further to 1.5082. While the next two days did bring better results, they were only very slight. This took the pound up to 1.5099 by Thursday evening. By Friday we were back down again, finishing the week on a disappointing 1.5051.
The next stop is with the euro: Could the pound do any better here? Our opening rate stood at 1.4265. Yet again, the pattern for the first two days saw the pound dropping in value, this time to 1.4160 by Tuesday night. It then improved to 1.4250 by Wednesday evening, before falling back into a downward spiral over the final two days of the week. This meant it ended up on 1.4226 by Friday.
So, not a good week thus far for the British pound. Could it achieve anything better against the Hong Kong dollar? The answer did not go in our favour. In fact, the pound started on 11.816 and dropped to 11.688 by Tuesday evening. It then mirrored the performance against the US dollar by improving to 11.702 over the next couple of days. Finally it dipped again on Friday, falling to 11.666 by the close of trading last week.
Our fourth stop takes in the New Zealand dollar. Would the pound put in the same performance against this dollar as it had against the other two we have seen thus far? We started off at 2.3246 here, but unfortunately the first four days were very disappointing. By the time Thursday evening arrived, the pound had slid down to 2.2970. Even though Friday did see an improvement of sorts, it only took the pound to 2.3031. This was still a very different result compared to where we had started.
Finally let’s see whether the pound would lose as much ground against the Australian dollar as it had against the New Zealand dollar. It opened the week on 2.1148. While it didn’t have four bad days early on, it did have three bad days. This took it to 2.0806 by Wednesday evening. There were marginal improvements over Thursday and Friday, but not enough for the pound to retrieve its losses so far. This meant it finished on 2.0897 on Friday night.
Notable events in the world of currency
A loss against the Canadian dollar
There was further bad news against this currency, as the British pound went from 2.0298 to 2.0089 this week.
Better news – finally – against the Swiss franc
Just as we thought there would be no good news this week, the British pound managed to get a good result against the Swiss franc. It started on 1.5496 and finished better off on 1.5507.
But another drop against the Icelandic krona
It was back to bad news here though, as the pound started on 200.758 before sliding back to 199.986.
As we can see, there was the odd good result mixed into a sea of bad news last week for the British pound. When the currency goes through a rough period like this, it does make you wonder whether the pound will be in for a prolonged period of bad news.
Only time will give us the answer to that idea. This week, however, the pound was not in good shape against any of the currencies we looked at. It may have achieved the odd reasonable result here and there, but you certainly had to go looking for them.