Welcome back to another review, where we look at whether the pound was able to maintain its position for this week.
An overview of the currency markets for July 25th – July 29th 2016
When the week began, the British pound was worth 1.3095 against the US dollar. We had a strong start though, and reached 1.3137 by the time we got to Tuesday evening. Wednesday was less encouraging, seeing a drop to 1.3104 (although this was a fairly minor fall). Thursday was better, pushing the pound up to 1.3167, but this would be the high point of the week. We could not manage to maintain this for the last day, and so we finished up with an exchange rate of 1.316706 – slightly lower than the rate given for the previous day.
We had a good start against the euro as well, rising from 1.1889 to 1.1951 this week. Was the pound starting to improve in general after the Brexit vote? Unfortunately, while that may have been true, the rest of the week went in the opposite direction. Day after day produced a poor result, and by the time Friday rolled around we were standing at 1.1848. This was lower than Monday’s opener had been, so all in all we hadn’t done well here.
Over to Hong Kong now, so we can see whether the pound did well against their dollar currency. The opening rate was 10.155 and again we started well. The first two days went well here, taking us to 10.190 by Tuesday night. We then had a dip on Wednesday, meaning the pound dropped to 10.164. However, the final two days were definitely the best of the lot. By Friday evening, the British pound was able to finish on a much stronger rate of 10.214.
So with that positive result fresh in our minds, could we achieve anything of note against the New Zealand dollar? We opened trading on 1.8723 before rising to 1.8774 on Monday evening. However, a drop back to 1.8589 the next day did not bode well. We did manage to increase our standing to 1.8636 on Wednesday, but as it turned out that would be the final good rate we would see. By Friday night, the pound had dipped again and we ended up finishing on 1.8501.
Finally, it’s the turn of the Australian dollar to try and do some damage against the pound. We were hoping this wouldn’t happen, of course, but would our wish come true? We started trading on 1.7497 before finishing day one with a rate of 1.7528. We then dropped back to 1.7439 on the second day, before it became clear the pattern of ups and downs was set in stone for the remainder of the week. By Friday, we had stalled on a slightly better rate of 1.7514 for the entire week.
Notable events in the world of currency
An improvement against the Canadian dollar
We did quite well here, as the pound improved from 1.7163 to 1.7349 throughout this week.
A good start but far from a good finish against the Swiss franc
The pound rose from 1.2911 to 1.3028 from Monday morning to Wednesday evening, but by Friday night it had sunk to 1.2823.
A sharp dive against the Icelandic krona
There was disappointing news here too this week, as the pound fell every day except the first one. We began on 159.835 and rose to 160.229 the following day before dropping to 156.452 by the end of the week.
So we can definitely see a couple of reasonable results in the mix this week, along with a few real disappointments. Perhaps we should expect to see such a variety of results in a single week. All in all, we could end up with a series of poor results for some time to come, with perhaps some better ones mixed in here and there. You never know where the pound is going at present, and perhaps that does at least keep things interesting.