Summary Of Currency Markets For November 9th – November 15th 2009

Here we are again at the start of another week, which means we have a whole week of results to consider as far as the performance of the British pound is concerned.

But what position are we in to begin with?  Did the pound have a good week the last time we caught up with it, or did it perform badly?  Let’s just take a quick recap to see where we stand this time around.  In total the British pound managed to bag three out of five good results last time – it increased by a small margin of 0.0028 against the US dollar, while dropping by the same amount against the Euro.

Elsewhere, it did better against the Hong Kong dollar by 0.021 and also did well against the New Zealand dollar – and in fact this was probably the best result it managed overall.  It increased the exchange rate on the currency converter here by 0.0173.  And finally in Australia it fell slightly by 0.0089 – just under a cent.

So we can see that the results from last time were not huge by any stretch of the imagination.  They were fairly minor no matter which direction they were heading in, so will that pattern be repeated this time around?  It will be interesting to see how the pound performs now and whether it can get more than three good results this week.  We have our results close at hand to share with you, so without further delay let us see what actually happened last week, between the 9th and the 15th November.

Are you ready?

An overview of the currency markets for November 9th – November 15th 2009

So our first stop as per usual is in America, to see how the pound performed against the US dollar.  We were left on an exchange rate of 1.6587 after the previous week’s raft of results, so we were hoping initially to break through into that $1.66 region.  Did we do it?

Well Monday evening brought a result that was perhaps rather surprising.  By the time the markets closed and trading was over for the day, the pound was standing at 1.6767.  So not only had we managed to achieve the $1.66 we had hoped for, we had smashed right through it.  The only point to think about now was whether we could hang onto that achievement throughout the rest of the week.  After all, four days can be a long time on the currency markets.

And perhaps predictably we could see a difference on Tuesday as the exchange rate went down slightly to 1.6654.  But even though this meant the loss of over a cent in twenty four hours, it was not enough to warrant an all out panic.  After all we were still ahead of the stage we were at when we started the week, and with three more trading days to go anything could happen yet.

So let’s move on to Wednesday to see what would occur there.  As it happened there would be very little difference at all, and the rate to the fourth decimal point was the same, coming in at 1.6654.  The fifth decimal point showed a slight drop for the pound, but this was measured at 0.004% overall since the previous day, so it wasn’t too much of a worry.

The following day gave us slightly more cause for concern, as the exchange rate went in favour of the US dollar once more.  This meant we finished the day on 1.6589, so with one more day to go we were just 0.0002 up on where we had finished last week.  Would this turn out to be a week where not much happened overall, or was there one last good result in the bag to be let out on Friday evening?

Fortunately for the British pound the answer was the latter.  The final exchange rate as we went into the weekend was 1.6682 – so we had actually achieved the goal of going over the $1.66 mark by the end of the week.  Overall the British pound had managed to achieve an increase of almost a whole cent – 0.0095 to be exact – during the whole week.  It could have been better, but it was still a good result overall.

So with that in mind let’s move on to see how the pound did against the Euro last week.  We had a loss of 0.0028 here, and with a closing exchange rate of 1.1160 we had some work to do if we wanted to close out this week in a stronger position.  Things can usually be tough going against the Euro, and progressing through the recession has not made things any easier.  So what could the pound do this time?

From that starting point we did manage to make some initial headway on Monday.  There were no big changes to be had, but the improvement we did see took us up to 1.1190 by the end of the day.  This was certainly good news, and hopefully it would be built on as the week went by.

Tuesday didn’t keep going in our favour though, because we slipped slightly and ended up on 1.1128 by the close of play.  Did this signal a downward slide that would be borne out by the end of the week, or could we reverse it at some point?

There were still three days to go at any rate, so it was a little early to be worrying about what would happen at the end of the week.  Wednesday didn’t help matters if we were looking for some reassurance though, as the final exchange rate in play at the end of that day was 1.1075. 

Luckily for us though, that would prove to be the low point of the week.  From then on things would start to improve, and as a result we could expect to see some better results to take on the Euro with.  Thursday was a case in point, as the pound upped things to 1.1161 by the end of the day.  Now we had started the week on 1.1160, so this took us just very marginally ahead of where we were at the beginning of trading for this week.  So what could we achieve in the final day to make sure the pound got the better of the Euro for this week?

The final result was possibly a little bit more impressive than we had counted on.  By the end of the day when everyone was looking forward to starting another weekend, the pound had claimed an exchange rate of 1.1220.  This meant we were a marginal 0.0060 up on where we had started from.  It was not a huge amount by any means – barely over half a Euro cent – but it was going in the right direction, and any gain was better than a loss.

So from there we move on to our third stop, which is Hong Kong.  We took on the dollar there last time and managed to increase the exchange rate by a small 0.021, which left us on 12.854.  So could we improve on that this time?

If we were looking for a good start to the week we certainly got it on Monday, because that was the day we ended up on 12.993.  So we had good news for starters, but could we continue that trend throughout the remaining four days?

Tuesday saw a lower result of 12.907, so the answer was definitely no.  But we were still doing better than the final result from last time, so it was important at this stage to keep things in perspective and to hope that we could get a reasonable result to close out the week on.  That, in the end, was what mattered the most.

But could we do it?  Wednesday actually didn’t tell us much either way of what could happen later in the week, as the exchange rate only dropped slightly on the fourth decimal point, leaving us on 12.907 but ever so slightly lower than the day before.

Thursday didn’t bode well though, because by the end of the day we were looking at an exchange rate against the Hong Kong dollar of 12.856.  Could the British pound manage to do something amazing and achieve a great result by the end of the week?

Amazingly the answer was yes.  By the time the weekend was upon us we were claiming an exchange rate of 12.928.  This meant we were 0.074 higher than we’d finished the week before, so that at least was a good result.

So with that in mind let us now move on to New Zealand.  This currency pairing produced our best result last time, with an exchange rate that was higher by 0.0173 by the time the week was out.
  So we were starting from 2.2937 this time around; it would be intriguing to see whether we could do anything more to push this amount higher.

Monday certainly didn’t get us off to the start we wanted though, because we ended up with an exchange rate that was significantly lower on day one.  The rate we were faced with was 2.2683.  Now we were clearly on the back foot and wondering if we could ever manage to do any better.

And when Tuesday dropped back further to 2.2506 things were not looking up for the British pound.  The New Zealand dollar had the upper hand here, and it was clearly not going to give it up.  This was borne out by the fact that we had an even lower rate to contend with on Wednesday, of 2.2458.

So could we do anything to improve on this poor performance by the pound against the Kiwi dollar?

We certainly made more of an effort on Thursday and as such we achieved an exchange rate of 2.2616.  But while this was a good surge upwards it was still some way short of where we had started.  And with one day to go it seemed unlikely that we would be able to grab back any position of strength.

And indeed this was proved to be the case on Friday evening, when we closed out the week with a rate of 2.2633.  It was slightly higher than the day before but not enough to warrant any celebrations.  And in fact we were just over three cents lower than we had been, so our best result last time could well be the worst one this time around.

With that in mind let us move across to our final currency of the week – the Australian dollar.  We dropped a cent against this currency last week, which left us on 1.8119 overall.  Could we do better here?

Once again Monday didn’t give us a lot to be confident about, as by the end of that first day we were stalled on 1.8061.  At least if we could stay above the $1.80 mark that would be something.

Unfortunately for the British pound we dipped below it the very next day, as we claimed a rate of 1.7966.  The question now was whether that was the last of the $1.80 rates we would see for the whole week.

Things got a little worse for the pound the next day, as the exchange rate reached a low of 1.7867.  You’ll notice we said a low though – this would prove to be the bottom point for the week, and we did at least have better things to report for the remaining two days.

Thursday had a closing rate of 1.7923 to report, while Friday managed to perk things up a little more again, with a closing rate of 1.7973.  But as you can see we still didn’t manage to reclaim the territory we had started in.  All in all we lost a total of 0.0146 over the week, so once again we didn’t have much to celebrate here.

So a mixed bag all in all for the pound, with some disappointing results to think about as the week wore on.

Notable events in the world of currency

US dollar picks up against the Swiss franc

The US dollar was barely above parity with the Swiss franc by the close of play on Monday evening, bagging an exchange rate of 1.0079.  But by Friday that had improved to 1.0154.

Canadian dollar reaps rewards against the Euro

The week was a resounding success for the Canadian dollar, as it took control over the Euro and raised rates from 0.6280 on Monday night to 0.6387 on Friday night.

Indian currency enjoys marginal increase against the Euro

It clearly wasn’t the best week for the Euro last week – the Indian rupee did well to increase its status against the European currency as well.  Monday’s exchange rate of 0.01437 climbed to 0.01450 by Friday night.

Speaking of the Indian rupee, it has been making the news recently owing to its performance.  A typical example of a news report is this one from the Bloomberg website – and as you can see the news looks good.

So there we are for another week.  And while it wasn’t the best one for the British pound we have seen a lot worse.  Many of the adjustments in exchange rates were relatively small, so let’s hope that we will see better results overall next time.  We’ll see you then.