Welcome back to our latest report on the state of the currency markets with regard to the British pound. If you were keeping an eye on your currency converter during the last report we made, you will know that the pound had a mixed start to the week.
For starters it was up against the US dollar with an increase of around half a cent during the first couple of days. But it dropped some ground – 0.0019 in total – against the Euro, so the news wasn’t as good there.
In Hong Kong the pound had a great start to the week with an increase of 0.05 all in all, so hopefully we will see more good news to come there. But New Zealand and Australia both saw losses for the pound of nearly two cents in two days against each currency.
So from that mixed beginning let’s see how the rest of the week would pan out, as we take a look at the latest currency results for the British pound.
An overview of the currency markets for February 15th – February 16th 2010
We’ll start with the US dollar as always, where we will see that the pound finished on 1.5679 on Tuesday night. Wednesday did better as we managed to up things to 1.5795 by the end of the day. But the midweek point turned out to be the high point of the week as well, as the next couple of days’ worth of figures proved.
Thursday night saw a big drop for the pound as it crashed down to earth on 1.5587. And there was worse news to come on Friday as the week finished with an exchange rate against the US dollar of 1.5392. So that meant we had lost out on 0.0287 over the course of three days. Not a good end to the week for the pound there.
Let’s move on to the Euro now to see whether we could perform better there. On Tuesday night we left the pound worth 1.1487 Euros, and by Wednesday evening it was worth slightly more at 1.1507. But from then on the pound would follow the pattern it had against the dollar, and by Thursday night it was worth 1.1488.
But once again the worst news was saved for Friday night, as we discovered the pound had dropped back to 1.1385. So here we had lost out on a total of just over one Euro cent.
Moving on to the Hong Kong dollar we find ourselves with a starting rate of 12.184. We had made a good start to the week here and this continued on into Wednesday as the exchange rate improved to 12.270. But once again this proved to be our failing point as Thursday saw a fall back to 12.105, and Friday finished in an even worse position. In this case it was on a lowly 11.954 that we finished the week, with a fall of 0.23 since Tuesday night.
Let’s move swiftly on now to New Zealand, where we last left things on Tuesday night with a rate of 2.2307. The predictable pattern of a good Wednesday – this time proved with a rate of 2.2322 – gave way to the equally predictable closing days of the week here too. Thursday brought a drop back to 2.2240 and by Friday night we were nursing a lower exchange rate of 2.2175. This gave us a three day loss of 0.0132.
And finally we go over to Australia, where we had a bad start to the week which saw us on 1.7494 on Tuesday night. But there was no Wednesday rally here, as we finished up even worse off by the time Wednesday was said and done. We finished on 1.7481 on that day, followed by a further fall to 1.7365 on Thursday and finally a depressing 1.7273 on Friday night.
So it was not the successful end to the week that we had been hoping for, although given the mixed results from the first two days that we saw last time, perhaps we were hoping for too much anyway.
Notable events in the world of currency
Canada dips and then recovers against the Aussie dollar
It was a dramatic second half of the week for the Canadian dollar against the Aussie dollar. It dropped from 1.0676 on Tuesday night to 1.0618 on Wednesday, before recovering quickly the following day. It then added on a small additional amount before finishing on 1.0672 on Friday night.
The US dollar climbs against the Euro
An exchange rate of 0.7326 was in place on Tuesday evening but a dip to 0.7285 the following day made us wonder how successful the week would be for the US dollar against the Euro.
But Thursday saw a renewed effort as the US dollar jumped back up to 0.7370 before improving to 0.7397 the following day.
Little difference for the Swiss franc against the Euro
The rate was pegged at 0.6812 on Tuesday night, but if there was an upper hand to be had it went to the Swiss franc. A better rate of 0.6825 was recorded on Thursday night before a slight dip saw it go back to 0.6822 on Friday.
It’s always good to read some news about the British pound on one of the major currency websites. And a typical story was seen on the Reuters website last Friday 19th. Watch out for more stories like this as it will give you a greater understanding of how various currencies are doing on the world stage – particularly the British pound.
So there we have it for another report. This has not been a good end to the week for the pound, but we have a fresh week ahead of us and we will of course bring you two more reports on what happens very soon. Will the pound improve and regain its losses? Or are there many more to come? We shall see.
I wonder why Wednesday turned out to be such a bad day for the pound last week? It had a really good start to the week and then lost it all at the end. I know we have seen patterns like this before but sometimes you can link it to a specific event or something that has occurred. Sometimes a news story can have an effect, but I don’t remember seeing anything like that this time. Does anyone know if anything happened that I missed? Maybe it would shed some light on why the pound finished so dreadfully?
I think sometimes the pound just happens to be the weakest currency of the lot for a particular week or time period. If you think about it, every one of the five currencies this report focuses on has to fall somewhere. They could all have brilliant weeks but one currency will still have to come last and have the worst exchange rate of the lot.
This is understandably frustrating but I think the pound is just the poorest currency going at the moment. Hopefully it will improve but there are a lot of factors going on that we have little control over. The economy and the recession alone have had a huge effect on what has been going on, so hopefully the pound will recover in its own time.