With the exchange rate standing at 0.8338 for the American dollar versus the euro on New Year’s Eve, as 2017 turned into 2018, no one had any idea what the year ahead would bring. It did not get off to the good start we might have hoped though, as the dollar fell to 0.8302 by the end of that first week.
There was more of the same to follow because the dollar dipped once again the week after. The euro was obviously doing reasonably well at this point, because it pushed the dollar back to 0.8239 by the 12th January.
If we were noticing a trend beginning to form at this point, we couldn’t be certain of it. However, any uncertainty soon started to trickle away on the evidence of the next week’s trading. By the 19th, the dollar had been reduced to a rate of 0.8159, leaving us wondering whether there was anything we could do to stem the small but ongoing losses it was experiencing. It was still early days as far as the year was concerned, but this was far from a good outcome.
Unfortunately, there was more to come at this stage at least. By the last day of January, the US dollar had dipped further to reach 0.8027 for the month. Compared with the 0.8338 rate we had seen at the beginning of the month, this was quite a difference. How would it position the dollar as we went into the next month? We would soon find out.
February brought the same ups and downs as we would expect, but the overall picture was perhaps better than we had thought. Fast-forwarding to the end of the month reveals a closing rate of 0.8187. That was significantly better than we had hoped for, given January’s outcome. It took time to get there, and the month was not without its low points – lower still than the ones we had seen elsewhere.
March started in good fashion too, as the US dollar perked up to close on the 1st at a rate of 0.8216. But again, we could never assume such a rate would continue to rise throughout the forthcoming days or weeks. Indeed, by that weekend, ending on the following day, we were already back to 0.8122. The final figure we have at present is for Friday 9th March, when the dollar finished trading on 0.8136 against the euro. But this was better than we had seen the previous day, when the dollar had finished on 0.8050. We must be grateful for the small mercies we’ve seen on the currency markets of late.