Welcome back to the latest report surrounding the currency markets. Let’s crack straight on with no delay.
An overview of the currency markets for May 9th – May 13th 2016
Here we go with another week of trading – a week that would end in Friday 13th. But would that prove to mean good or bad news for the British pound? It began in somewhat troubling fashion by dropping to 1.4424 from the opening rate of 1.4492 today. The middle of the week was characterised by two good days, seeing it rise to 1.4449 by Wednesday night. However, as it turned out, the remainder of the week was rather better for the US dollar than for the pound. As a result, the British currency finished on 1.4408, almost a cent lower than its opening rate had been.
Moving on to the realm of the euro now, the British pound started on 1.2682 here, before falling to 1.2658 on Monday. The pattern of ups and downs that would characterise the week here soon became abundantly clear. It meant we always knew roughly what would happen each day, but not how extreme the ups and downs would be. However, with that said, the week ended up with two good results in a row. This meant the pound went from 1.2664 on Wednesday evening to 1.2697 by Friday night.
Over to Hong Kong for our third stop this week, and here the pound started trading against this particular version of the dollar on 11.246. This figure dropped quite starkly on day one, falling to 11.197 in the process. However, it did manage a recovery of sorts over the next two days, taking the exchange rate to 11.213 as it did so. The pound just didn’t have enough strength to get through the next couple of days to finish on a good note, however. This meant it ended up finishing on 11.185 for the week as a whole.
Fourth on our list of stops is New Zealand, where the pound began trading against their dollar on 2.1181. Things looked promising as we finished the first day on 2.1198, and then perked up considerably to 2.1437 the day after. Could we hold onto that lead? In truth, we couldn’t. By the time we had gone through another few days’ worth of trading, the pound had fallen to 2.1194. At least this was still slightly better than the opening rate had turned out to be.
So could we deliver a good result in the final territory we are going to look at here, where the Australian dollar is in use? The pound began trading on 1.9658 before jumping to 1.9676 on Monday night. However, we then had to experience two bad days one after the other, dropping the pound back down to 1.9597 by Wednesday night. Fortunately, we managed to put two good days together after that, pushing the pound back to 1.9780 as a result.
Notable events in the world of currency
A drop against the Canadian dollar
The pound didn’t do well here this week, falling from 1.8664 to 1.8561 as it went through five days of trading.
A slight fall against the Swiss franc as well
Here too the news wasn’t good. The pound started the week on 1.4039 and ended it slightly lower on 1.3997.
Better news with regard to the position against the Icelandic krona
The good news lay in unexpected places this week, as seen here. The pound began on 176.917 and ended up rising to 177.186 to finish things off.
So this was really a mix of good and bad news this week. Anything halfway decent had to be fought for as we focused on looking for results we could celebrate. At least we didn’t have too many bad losses, instead keeping things within small parameters this time around.
Whether or not we will be able to say the same next week remains to be seen. We will let you know the results as soon as we have them.