So, how would the British pound fare this time around, as we bed into the New Year with another full week of stats? Let’s find out.
An overview of the currency markets for January 11th – January 15th 2016
The British pound was looking for a reasonable performance against the US dollar this week. However, it hardly moved at all on Monday, only changing a few decimal points along the line to stay on 1.4574 on the face of things. After that it was downhill all the way, dropping to 1.4432 on Tuesday and heading even further south throughout the remaining three days of the week. By the time Friday arrived, the pound slid to 1.4332 to close out the week with a loss of over two cents.
Would there be a similar picture in force against the euro? Our opening rate here was 1.3419 but that dipped to 1.3385 on day one. It wasn’t looking good as we dropped further to 1.3319 on the second day, but with a rise to 1.3329 the following day, we were feeling more encouraged. That encouragement was misplaced, however. The final two days of the week did not go as planned, and the pound ended up falling back to 1.3131 to finish things off against the euro.
So with two poor results already behind us, could the British pound achieve anything better in Hong Kong? We began the week on 11.314 against their dollar, but once again the early news was not good. After two days of trading, the pound had fallen to 11.200. There seemed to be little we could do to change things, and even a slight rise to 11.198 on Thursday, after dropping to 11.186 the day before, was not enough. We finished poorly on 11.169 on Friday night.
Now it was down to the New Zealand and Australian dollars, and the chance that things could be very different in this part of the world. We opened on 2.2074 here, and we did start in better condition, rising to 2.2189 on Monday evening. However, two poor days followed this, leading to 2.2019 by Wednesday night. If we thought we were in for another poor performance though, this was not the case. The last two days definitely went our way, allowing us to finish on 2.2459 by Friday night. This meant we had added on nearly four cents throughout the week.
Was there similar good news in store for us in Australia? We opened on 2.0793 here before spending the first three days of the week dropping in value. This took us to 2.0545 by Wednesday night. The last two days more than made up for the losses though. Great strides ahead on those two days meant we ended up with a rate of 2.0873 by Friday night. This equated to a marginal rise over the entire week.
Notable events in the world of currency
A better performance against the Canadian dollar
There was better news here as the pound added on more than two-and-a-half cents against the Canadian dollar this week, finishing on 2.0812 as a result.
But back to bad news against the Swiss franc
Here the pound began the week on 1.4573 but finished it lower down on 1.4380, losing 0.0193 in the process.
Another drop against the Icelandic krona
The British pound clearly wasn’t having a good week, as it dipped from 189.383 here to 185.765 against the krona.
So it had been an arduous week all in all. While we had picked out a couple of good results against the New Zealand and Australian dollars, there was little to be pleased about elsewhere. If we had hoped for a good start to 2016, we certainly weren’t getting it at the moment. Perhaps we can hope for gradual improvements here and there rather than a wholesale rise in exchange rates across the board. This is looking increasingly unlikely at the moment, as we can see from this week’s figures.