The last couple of weeks have been interesting in terms of the British pound’s performance on the currency markets. As we go through the period between announcing the General Election and the event itself, there is plenty of chance for the pound to fluctuate. So, how will it perform this week?
An overview of the currency markets for May 8th – May 12th, 2017
Starting with the pound versus the US dollar, we began on 1.2939 this week. From there, we managed to increase slightly by Monday night, rising to 1.2949 as we did so. However, we slipped to 1.2915 the following day, before rising again to 1.2957 on Wednesday. This up-and-down pattern turned out to progress through the entire week, but it did go in our favour in the end. This is because Friday’s closing rate settled on 1.285762 – slightly ahead of the 1.295708 we had on Wednesday.
So, with one good result there, how could we progress against the euro? Would we see another success there as well? We opened on 1.1804 here, before rising over the course of the first three days of the week. This meant we finished on 1.1906 by Wednesday evening, giving us a nice encouraging start. As we may have guessed, though, we had two less encouraging days to close the week. By Friday night, we had dipped to 1.1822 – although thankfully, this was better than we’d started on.
Over to Hong Kong now, where the British pound began trading on 10.071 last week. This improved on day one, rising to 10.081, and we then had the exact same up-and-down pattern throughout the remainder of the week as we had seen against the American dollar. Unfortunately, the pound could not make the most of it and finished on 10.020 by Friday night, exhibiting an overall loss for the week.
When we examined the performance of the pound versus the New Zealand dollar, we had a different pattern yet again. Opening on 1.8782 here, we had a poor day to start with, dropping to 1.8708. Tuesday was better, before the pound fell back to 1.8659 on Wednesday – the lowest rate thus far. However, we finished in good style with two stronger days to close out the week. This meant we finished up with a rate of 1.8787, which was slightly up on the opening rate for the week.
Finally, we saw the Australian dollar coming in to try and get the better of the pound. We began on 1.7509 here, before enjoying two good days to start the week. This took us to 1.7567 by Tuesday evening. But this was a week of two halves, because the remaining days were better for the Aussie currency than for ours. The pound finally ended the week’s trading on 1.7415.
Notable events in the world of currency
A poor showing against the Canadian dollar
The overall pattern was down here, last week, because the pound fell from 1.7818 to 1.7663 by Friday.
Better news against the Swiss franc
Here, at least, the pound did far better. It opened on 1.2795 before rising over the first three days. Even though it dipped on the final two, it still managed to finish on 1.2960 overall.
A drop against the Icelandic krona
Just to prove you could never quite tell what would happen next, the pound started on 137.022 against the Icelandic krona, before finishing on 134.111 last week.
So, it was a week where you could never point at a specific pattern to say it had been a good performance. Instead, there were ups and downs all over the place, and no real way of knowing how this would progress, either.
However, it was not all bad, and the British pound came out of the week in relatively good shape. We will be curious to see how things might progress next week, though, as there could be some interesting experiences there. We shall be back with the latest news when we have it.