Welcome back to our next currency report, where we are hoping for better news to bring you than we had last week. How promising would things be this time around?
An overview of the currency markets for February 12th – February 16th, 2018
If we were hoping for a good start against the US dollar this week, we certainly got it. The pound opened on 1.3830 and then enjoyed four strong days in a row. This meant that by Thursday evening, the pound had soared to reach 1.4090 – an improvement of over two and a half cents. So, while there was a marginal drop to 1.4035 on Friday, this was still a successful week all around.
Could we continue that performance against the euro, though? Things are always uncertain here because of the Brexit negotiations, so we cannot take anything for granted. The opening rate was 1.1268 and we did improve on this on Monday, rising to 1.1286. However, the next two days were rather less appealing, as we dropped back to 1.1230 by Wednesday night. Another rise took place on Thursday, to 1.1279, before we lost more ground on Friday, stalling on 1.1260. A slight drop overall, then.
The big question now was whether the pound would replicate the same result against the Hong Kong dollar as it had against the US dollar. The short answer here is a resounding yes. From an opening rate for the week of 10.816, we then progressed through four excellent days to reach 11.022 by Thursday night. While we dropped to 10.976 on Friday, we did manage to come out of the week in good shape.
Our fourth stop takes us over to New Zealand, and an opening rate of 1.9103 against their dollar. This was far from a good result though, as the first three days saw a series of dips that resulted in a closing rate of 1.8949 by Wednesday night. Thursday had better news, as we perked up to 1.9071. However, another dip on Friday took us down to a disappointing 1.8977.
So, would we see a similar outcome against the Australian dollar here, or would we follow the pattern against the US dollar instead? We soon had our answer. We opened on 1.7715 in this part of the world, before dropping to 1.7658 by the end of Monday. We recouped some of those losses the next day, rising to 1.7670. However, this was going to be an up-and-down week, so we had another rise and fall experience before the week was up. By Friday night, we had stalled on 1.7673.
Notable events in the world of currency
Another rise against the Canadian dollar
Here, we saw how the pound managed some good results in some areas, and some not so good ones elsewhere. Here, the news was good – we had a rise from 1.7438 to 1.7552 this time around.
A slight rise against the Swiss franc
There wasn’t much difference this week, but we did see a slight edge for the pound as it rose from 1.2959 to 1.2973.
But a fall against the Icelandic krona
It wasn’t to be good news everywhere though. The pound fell from 141.269 to 140.606 against the krona.
So, we had a mixed bag this week, although there were some good pieces of news to impart, which was a relief. Whenever we see some great news for the pound, we hope it will be replicated in numerous countries, but it is rarely the case. There were some encouraging results to be found this week though, which did bode well for the future. Compared to last week, this was good to know.
Make sure you return next week to find out what has occurred in the intervening few days. Can we hope the British pound will have had another reasonable week, or will we have further bad news to reveal? We will be here to make sure you get all the important news from the currency markets.