The British Pound Struggles Against Two Dollar Currencies

Welcome back to another currency report, which looks at the aftermath of the election result and how that affected the British pound.

The British pound began trading on 1.2752 against the US dollar this week. With the memory of the General Election still fresh in our minds, it was an uncertain time. This was borne out by a loss on Monday, dropping the pound to 1.2672. However, the following day was better as we increased things to 1.2735. From there on, the rest of the week was also much better than we had perhaps hoped for. By Friday evening, the British pound had managed to edge ahead to 1.2769, which was higher than we had opened with – something of a surprise.

So, could we spring the same surprise against the euro? Here, we started trading on 1.1410 before falling to 1.1293 on day one. That gave us a lot of ground to make up even if the rest of the week was as good as it had been against the American dollar. We did indeed improve every day from then on, and we did achieve the impossible too – rising steadily day by day until we reached an exchange rate of 1.1434 by Friday night.

With two encouraging results thus far, could we manage to increase our standing against the Hong Kong dollar as well? Once again, we had the same pattern of a loss followed by four improvements here, just as we had seen against the US dollar and the euro thus far. We began on 9.9427 before falling to 9.8831 on Monday night. Then came the four improvements we had hoped for – and once again, we ended the week in much better shape. The improvements here were very good, too, as we edged up to 9.9605.

Now for the situation against the New Zealand dollar. We began trading on 1.7709 here before dropping back to 1.7598 on Monday night. But the remainder of the week was not as smooth as we had experienced against other currencies. Instead, it was up one minute and down the next. That meant we ended the week in worse condition, on 1.7656 all told.

Finally, we must see which way trading against the Australian dollar will go. We opened on 1.6929 here, before falling to 1.6799 on Monday evening. We did regain something the following day, taking us back to 1.6894, but from then on it was downhill all the way. This meant that by the time the week was done, the British pound stood at a lower rate of 1.6789 against the Aussie currency – not the result we had hoped for.

The pound had mixed results against the dollar currencies this week, and here, we had some disappointing results. We dropped from 1.7227 to just 1.6884 by Friday night.

Here, at least, we had some more encouraging results to share. The pound opened on 1.2395 before rising to 1.2446 by the close of the week.

We managed some good results against some less well-known currencies too, such as the Icelandic krona. Here, we began on 127.771 before rising to 128.978 after an initial loss on Monday.

So, we had some good results for the most part this week. Perhaps we will have better ones all around next week, too, although a week is a long time on the currency markets. While the election is now finished, there is still a great deal of uncertainty and upheaval all around. That could influence the position of the pound for the foreseeable future, and it could lead to some day-to-day ups and downs as well. 

We shall be back next week to find out if there are some more good results to share with you – or whether the news will go in a different direction.