Welcome back to the latest currency report, as we see how the British pound fared last week.
An overview of the currency markets for July 3rd – July 7th, 2017
The week began on 1.2978 for the British pound against the US dollar, but we had by far the most disappointing start. The first three days were far from impressive, and we experienced a drop in the exchange rate every day leading up to Wednesday evening. At this point, the pound stood at 1.2912. Things improved the day after, as the pound managed to climb back to 1.2935. However, with this still coming in under the original starting rate, and just one day left to trade, it didn’t bode well for the entire week. And indeed, Friday’s closing rate ended up being lower still, on 1.2896.
Let’s move on now to see what occurred against the euro. Here, the pound started trading on 1.1372 and had a better start than we’d seen against the US dollar. Instead of falling, it rose to 1.1401 on Monday night. We then dropped a little to 1.1388 the next day, before rising again to 1.1397 by Wednesday night. Unfortunately, the final two days of the week were disappointing, and Friday’s loss alone was enough to take us to the lowest point of the week, on 1.1300.
Moving on to Hong Kong now, the pound opened trading on 10.129 against the Hong Kong dollar. From there, we had three poor days of trading that took us lower to 10.080 by Wednesday evening. This perked back up to 10.102 on Thursday, before another fall took the pound to the lowest rate for the week, this time on 10.073. This was far from being a convincing performance for the pound, but we still have two more notable currencies to look at. Will the pound do better against the likes of the Aussie and Kiwi dollars?
Let’s begin with the New Zealand dollar, where the pound’s starting point was 1.7688. We started confidently enough here, rising to 1.7768 on day one, giving us a cushion we may need later in the week. Indeed, we needed it straightaway, as the next two days were far from impressive. We dropped to 1.7752 here by Wednesday night. Thursday was more encouraging, as the pound edged up to 1.7834, which was the highest rate of the week. But a drop to 1.7707 on Friday wiped out some of that increase – albeit leaving us better off than we’d been at the start of the week.
Finally, let’s see whether the pound could get the better of the Australian dollar. We opened trading on 1.6889 here, before rising steadily – and perhaps surprisingly, given what we’ve seen elsewhere – over the first four days of the week. This took us to 1.7052 by Thursday evening. While we fell back to 1.6858 on Friday, this was still higher than we’d started with, so that was good news at least.
Notable events in the world of currency
A drop against the Canadian dollar
The British pound was obviously struggling this week, as we saw yet again where the Canadian dollar was concerned. It fell from 1.6813 to 1.6732.
A slight fall against the Swiss franc, too
The news didn’t get any better here, as the pound dropped from 1.2429 to 1.2411 this week.
Better news this time around against the Icelandic krona
At least here we managed to get a better result. The pound began trading on 133.048 before rising to 134.289 by Friday evening.
So, we had a couple of noteworthy results last week, even though you needed to look harder to find them. If we wanted better results than that, it seemed we would need to wait to achieve them. The pound was clearly struggling in many respects, and perhaps that is indicative of the Brexit negotiations and uncertainty in many areas. We shall be watching closely to see if we can spot any improvements for next week.