Welcome back to our regular currency report, which as you may know is now twice weekly. This time we will be looking at the figures you would have seen on your currency converter for the last three days of trading last week.
As the week got underway we saw that the pound had a bad time against every single one of the five currencies we look at each time. We were down by nearly a cent against the US dollar and half a cent against the Euro. And as if this wasn’t bad enough we also lost out on 0.075 against the Hong Kong dollar during those first two days of the week.
The worst results were reserved for the likes of the New Zealand dollar and the Australian dollar to batter us with though. We lost out on a mammoth 0.0399 cents against the New Zealand dollar and nearly two cents against the Aussie dollar, so it was clear that we weren’t having a good day here at all.
The question now is how the rest of the week panned out. Could the British pound come back and regain some strength to fight it out and regain some ground? Or would it lose yet more as the week came to a close? Let’s find out right now and see what actually did happen.
An overview of the currency markets for March 10th – March 12th 2010
So our first stop is with the US dollar, where we last left things on an exchange rate of 1.4956. Could we go back above the $1.50 mark again?
Wednesday didn’t make things look too promising as the pound sank back slightly further to land on 1.4933 at the end of the day. But luckily for us that would be the worst that it would get. Thursday saw us rise above the $1.50 mark once again, which made us feel confident that perhaps we could turn things around after all. We garnered a rate of 1.5030 that day.
And finally on Friday we managed to do a bit better still and achieve a closing rate for the week of 1.5154. This meant we had added on just short of two cents in the last three days of the week, which was much better than we perhaps thought we might do.
So is that the best result of the week or is there more to come? Let’s see what the pound could do against the Euro. Our starting point here was 1.1032 after having dropped half a cent in the early stages of the week. Things got worse on Wednesday though as the pound fell back to 1.0972. Could we remedy this and make sure we could do better as the week went on?
We did manage to climb back up to 1.1005 on the following day and Friday did a little better by upping things to 1.1009. But it wasn’t as good as we had hoped for, as we lost out on 0.0023 throughout the last three days of the week.
Moving on to Hong Kong now, we last left things on 11.607 on Tuesday evening. And once again Wednesday proved to be the sticking point as the pound slipped down to 11.587. The question now was whether we could climb back up or whether the slippery slope would continue.
But the pound certainly had some strength to show here, and the figure by the close of play on Thursday had gone up to an impressive 11.663. And there was even better news to close out the week with, as the pound finished on 11.756 on Friday evening. This meant we had done well here and added on a total of 0.149 throughout the final half of the week.
But could we replicate that in New Zealand? We certainly needed to produce some kind of good result because the first half of the week saw us lose out to the tune of nearly four whole cents. That left us on 2.1438 and we desperately needed to do better.
We didn’t do well on Wednesday though because the figure dropped further still to 2.1134. Thursday saw us recoup that loss at least, as we finished on 2.1451 at the end of the day. There was another increase on Friday to 2.1554 so at least we had managed to add on over a cent since our dismal finishing point on Tuesday evening.
Finally there is the Aussie dollar, which finished on 1.6480 after a loss of nearly two cents last time. And once again Wednesday wasn’t good as we finished the day on 1.6299. Thursday brought things back up to 1.6416 and we finally ended the week on an exchange rate of 1.6504. So we had gained the miniscule amount of 0.0024 over the course of those last three days.
Notable events in the world of currency
US dollar dips against the Euro
On Tuesday night the rate was 0.7376 Euros to the dollar. But by Friday night that had fallen back to 0.7264.
Another dip for the US dollar – this time against the Canadian dollar
Once again the rate fell for the US dollar, going from 1.0298 against the Canadian dollar on Tuesday night to 1.0180 on Friday.
An up and down affair for the US dollar against the Chinese currency
This head to head was a little more dramatic, rather than simply being a downhill slope. But an exchange rate of 6.8262 on Tuesday night transformed into a rate of 6.8254 on Friday – slightly lower on the whole.
The upcoming election is definitely having an effect on the performance of the British pound at the moment. This was pointed out in an article on the Reuters website. It focused on a poll which revealed more information about the possible outcome of the General Election – rather better than a potential hung parliament.
So there we are for another week. How will things progress from here on in? We’ll be back in a couple of days to reveal all.
I read the article about the General Election and I hope the outcome doesn’t hammer the pound even more than it has been hammered already. I would prefer a total change of government and hopefully that is what we will get, but who can say? One thing is for sure though – nothing good is going to happen with the pound until after the beginning of May. This is when we are set to have the election, although it hasn’t been officially announced yet.
Hopefully the second half of the year will be better for the pound. It surely couldn’t get much worse could it? I know the exchange rates have been lower but not by a lot. And it doesn’t look promising at the moment.