We have all the results to bring you from another week of trading for the British pound. Let’s get started, shall we?
An overview of the currency markets for February 8th – February 12th 2016
The week got underway with the British pound standing at 1.4552 against the US dollar. Unfortunately, things did not get off to the best start. Instead, the pound found itself on 1.4372 by the time Monday was over. The good news was we did manage something of a recovery over the next two days, which took the pound back to 1.4557 by Wednesday evening. Although there was another drop on Thursday, the pound then managed to improve again to finish the week on 1.4504. Unfortunately, this was still around half a cent down on the opening rate earlier in the week.
Over in Europe, the pound began trading on 1.2991 against the euro. Here too though, we had two poor days to start things off. This meant we had dropped to 1.2829 by Tuesday evening. Despite climbing back to 1.2931 on Wednesday, the remaining two days were something of a struggle. A loss on Thursday meant that even with an improvement on Friday, we ended up with a lower rate to finish the week – 1.2864 – than we had experienced to open it.
So, would the overall trend be down against the Hong Kong dollar as well? Trading began on 11.332 on Monday, before a drop took us to 11.196 by that evening. Two better days followed, taking the pound to 11.339 as a result. However, that same pattern of a drop on Thursday and a rise on Friday came to pass here as well. Unfortunately, the pound was not in a strong enough position to make the most of it. It meant the pound finished slightly down for the week on 11.296 here.
Would there be better news in New Zealand though? Here we began trading on 2.1636, and the first couple of days went in our favour as well. By Tuesday evening we finished much higher on 2.1919. We couldn’t keep that up though, and just two days later we were down to 2.1555. Had we left it too late to recoup our losses? Surprisingly enough, the answer was no. By the time Friday had come to an end, the pound stood at 2.1824 – much better off than it had been on Monday morning.
Very often, the pound manages to replicate its performance against the New Zealand dollar with something similar against the Australian dollar as well. We saw this played out once more this week. The pound started on 2.0244 and had two good days to take it to 2.0633. Then it was back to 2.0342 by Thursday, before recovering to 2.0455 on Friday evening. This brought the week to a successful conclusion.
Notable events in the world of currency
A slight rise against the Canadian dollar
Good news here for the pound, as it rose from 2.0011 to 2.0194 over the course of the week.
A steady drop against the Swiss franc
It wasn’t all good news though, as we can see here. The pound started Monday morning on 1.4421 against the Swiss franc, before dropping to 1.4136 on Friday evening.
A slight drop against the Icelandic krona too
While the drop here was not as pronounced, it was still present. The pound began on 184.627, before falling back to 183.205 on Friday night.
So once again, it is a very mixed week on the currency markets. At least the pound did do well in some quarters, if not in all of them. There were some notable improvements here and there, but it is quite uncommon for the pound to be in good shape right across the board.
With that in mind, we shall monitor the situation and see whether things will improve further next week, or whether we have bad news to share with you at that point. You will get all the answers here when we have them.