It’s time once again to see how a fresh week on the currency markets panned out for the initial two days. We’ve been keeping a close eye on our currency converter to see how much the British pound has been worth over those two days, and we’re ready to share the news with you now.
But first let’s take our usual look at how the pound finished the previous week, to see whether it has much ground to make up this time around. We had two good results last week against the Australian dollar and the Euro. In the case of the Aussie dollar we managed to add on a cent and a half over those last three days of the week. We managed well over a cent against the Euro too, so at least we did well in these two locations.
Elsewhere it was a different story, although our losses were not as steep as they might have been. For instance the US dollar did better than we did as we lost out on 0.0039 there during those last few days of the week. We added to that by losing 0.03 against the Hong Kong dollar and finally we dropped by 0.0069 against the New Zealand dollar as well.
So could we start this new week on a better note, and keep working at increasing our good results against the Euro and the Aussie dollar? Let’s find out the answers right now.
An overview of the currency markets for April 26th – April 27th 2010
Here we are then with our first look at how the British pound performed against the US dollar. We have a starting rate of 1.5347 to go from, so let’s see what we could do with that.
We certainly got a good start to the week, because by Monday evening we were sitting on a rate of 1.5446. But by Tuesday all that good work had been undone, and we had slipped back to 1.5327 instead. This meant we had actually lost out on 0.002 during those first two days.
Could we do any better against the Euro though? This was one of our two good results last time around, so another good result against the problematic single currency would be good here too.
Our starting point was 1.1530 and by Monday evening it was clear which currency had the opening stance. The British pound moved up to 1.1595, but we have already seen it do the same against the US dollar and Tuesday brought a drop back down to earth. Would we see the same again here too?
Indeed we would, as the pound finished the following day on 1.1533. However this meant we were still slightly ahead, if only by 0.0003. Let’s hope we can capitalise on this small increase for the remainder of the week.
Our third stop is as always the Hong Kong dollar. Here we are starting from a rate of 11.913, so it would be nice to do better than that by adding something on for a change, instead of losing ground.
And again we fell into a familiar but disappointing pattern as we soared up to an impressive 11.992 by the end of Monday’s trading. But again we could not hold onto that increase as we ended up back down to 11.899 by Tuesday night. This meant we had once again lost out on some ground, losing 0.014 in the process. Let’s hope we can reverse this at some point in the future.
Our fourth stop is with the New Zealand dollar, the third currency we lost ground with last week. This time we had a starting exchange rate of 2.1563. But if we were expecting good news on Monday and bad news on Tuesday, we didn’t follow the pattern this time around. Instead we had two lots of bad news – starting with a drop to 2.1355 on Monday night.
Tuesday got even worse as the pound fell back to 2.1283, meaning we had lost out on a total of nearly three cents in just two days. Let’s hope the second half of the week pans out rather better here than this early stage did.
Finally we’re off to Australia to see how the British pound could do there. This time we managed to start from 1.6677 and drop straightaway by the end of Monday, but we did limit the rot to a lower rate of 1.6623. It could have been a lot worse, for sure.
By Tuesday night we had fallen again to 1.6602. So in all we had lost out on three quarters of a cent here. It was not exactly the best week we had ever managed.
Notable events in the world of currency
US dollar dips against the Aussie currency
In the first of three evaluations of the US dollar, it dipped from 1.0866 to 1.0831 against the Australian currency in the opening two days of the week.
A slight rise against the Canadian currency
The US dollar managed to up things from 1.0019 to 1.0037 against the Canadian dollar, even though it dipped just below parity in between.
A small rise against the Euro
Another good result for the US dollar, as it went from 0.7512 to 0.7524 during the first two days of the trading week.
Reasons for the struggling Euro were firmly given after a story about Greece hit the headlines on the 27th of this month. You can read more here. Greece now has a junk rating, which meant the Euro dipped against other currencies.
So it has been an interesting if not exciting start to the week, as various events sought to influence the currency markets. Hopefully we will see a better second half as far as the pound is concerned, but somehow we don’t think it will be much better – if at all.
We’ll see you for our next report once the trading week is over.
I love reading these reports when they are hot off the press, to use an old printing term online! But it’s also worth going back over old ones to see where patterns are repeated and the rises and falls are over a longer period of time.
This report in particular was weird to look back on because it clearly wasn’t a good week for the pound. And yet the last two reports I have read have both been incredibly successful. The pound has increased by amazing amounts both times, against all the five currencies you always focus on.
So maybe things aren’t all bad here. Instead we can look forward to having a good time with good results against the currencies in future. Although of course the good news won’t last either.