Here we are again with a brand new currency report for you, focusing on the three days between the 9th and the 11th June. Hopefully the pound will have performed well as that week came to a close, but before we see how it did we should take a look at the opening two days of that week.
This was very much a start that was split down the middle. The pound did exceptionally well against the Aussie dollar and the New Zealand dollar during those first two days. It gained a total of three and a half cents against the New Zealand dollar, with an equally appreciable two and a half cents gained against the Australian dollar as well.
But elsewhere it was a different story. The pound ended up losing one and a half cents against the US dollar on the currency converter. It also lost 0.103 against the Hong Kong dollar, making two bad results all in all. But there was one more negative result to come, although this wasn’t much of a change from the previous week. We were down by 0.0009 against the Euro, which didn’t give us much cause for concern at all.
So let us see how things panned out for the remainder of that week as we check out the currency markets now. Will the pound have continued to do well against the Aussie and Kiwi dollars, or did it take a turn for the worse? And how well did it do elsewhere?
An overview of the currency markets for June 9th – June 11th 2010
The opening rate between the British pound and the US dollar on the Wednesday of last week was 1.4421. Wednesday finished on the same exchange rate with no change at all, but Thursday was more interesting. The pound managed to add on a small amount to give it a closing rate for the day of 1.4596. But things were about to get better still as well.
By the time Friday evening rolled around we were looking at an exchange rate of 1.4623. This meant the British pound had got the good ending it wanted, with an increase of just over two cents over those three days of trading.
Let’s move on and see how the British pound performed against the Euro now. We all know the Euro is having real problems now, so here we should have a good chance to increase our exchange rate with the single European currency.
The starting rate was 1.2076 and once again there was no change on Wednesday. The pound made the most of Thursday’s period of trading though, as it managed to up its game and achieve a closing rate here of 1.2118. Could it now hold on to that level to close out the week?
Unfortunately the answer did not go in our favour. Instead we ended up falling back to 1.2058 overall, meaning we had lost out on a tiny amount once again, this time 0.0018. We just couldn’t seem to get the results we wanted here.
Let’s move on to look at the Hong Kong dollar now, to see whether we had better results here. Once again we were looking to gain back the losses we had experienced earlier in the week.
Our opening rate was 11.255. No movement on Wednesday meant we had to wait until Thursday to see anything else on the exchange rate. But it was worth waiting for as the final figure for that day came in at 11.376. And although the rate of improvement slowed down as the week reached its end, we still finished off with a rate of 11.396 on Friday evening. This gave us an increase of 0.141 to celebrate as the weekend arrived.
Those were the three currency pairings that saw the pound come off worst at the beginning of the week. But we know we had some good results against the New Zealand dollar and the Australian dollar, so could we manage to do better here as well?
Our starting rate was 2.1784 and after the stalled Wednesday we ended up with a disappointing Thursday instead. We had dropped back to 2.1432 by the end of the day, and it got worse still as Friday beckoned. We could not succeed in gaining back our losses and we even made it worse, as the British pound ended on 2.1248 on Friday evening. This gave us a disappointing loss of well over five cents over those three days.
So would we have a similar result against the Australian dollar as well? We started on 1.7606 and by the time Wednesday and Thursday had flown by we were on 1.7341 instead. And with just one day to go we were feeling as if we were looking at a familiar pattern. Indeed, the final rate for the week was 1.7244, giving us a total loss of over three and a half cents over those three days.
Notable events in the world of currency
Pound drops against Canadian dollar
The pound didn’t do well against the Canadian dollar either last week. It dropped from 1.5187 to 1.5074 by the time the week was out.
A slight increase for the pound against the Icelandic currency
There was a small margin of improvement here as the pound went from 188.603 on Tuesday evening to 188.995 by the end of the week.
Good news for the pound against the Swiss franc
There was more good news here too, as the pound climbed from 1.6657 to 1.6752 by the end of the week.
So it was a mixed week for the pound all in all. The usual currencies we look at did not produce good results, but there were one or two notable successes elsewhere.
We can see why this outcome occurred by dipping into the news results for the end of the week last week. This report from Reuters gives us an idea of what happened to weaken the pound.
We can only hope that things improve next week. Until then we will be watching to see what happens next.