Welcome back to our latest look at the currency markets. It’s that time of year when many of us have an eye on the currency converter to see how far the British pound will go when converted into another currency. So with that in mind we shall take a fresh look at how the pound has performed against five of the major currencies around today.
Last time we only had one decent result out of five to look at, and this was against the Euro. But even there the result was only marginally better than the figure we had started with.
Elsewhere it was small losses right across the board. At least it could have been worse – bigger losses would have been more pronounced and harder to cope with.
Let’s see then how things developed from this point on.
An overview of the currency markets for July 14th – July 16th 2010
The week started on some good news for the British pound, as it climbed from its opening rate against the US dollar of 1.5110. By the time Wednesday evening arrived it was on 1.5225 instead.
The news continued on the following day as the pound crept up to 1.5350. But could it carry on and finish the week on a good note as well?
Indeed it could, and by Friday evening the closing rate was 1.5378. This meant the pound had added on over two and a half cents in the second half of the week.
Next up is the Euro – the only currency we improved against during the first part of the week. Our starting point was 1.2022 but the same story would not be true here. By Wednesday evening we were on 1.1986, and the following two days also provided drops. Finally we ended on 1.1829, giving us a disappointing result here.
There was better news against the Hong Kong dollar though, as we climbed from 11.747 to 11.835 on Wednesday. We did better still the following day as the British pound managed to gain a closing rate of 11.927. It could not be denied a better rate on Friday either, and the pound closed out the week on 11.954.
Let’s move over to see how the pound did against the New Zealand dollar now. Our starting rate here was 2.1208 and this was followed by a small move up to 2.1211 on Wednesday night. Things dropped to 2.1184 the following day though, which didn’t bode well.
Luckily we recovered and ended the week on an impressive exchange rate of 2.1465, so there was much to celebrate there.
Finally we have the Aussie dollar, where we last left things on 1.7234. There was never any question whether the British pound was in charge here or not, as we climbed throughout the week to finish on 1.7521.
So it was a better end to the week than we might have hoped for all in all.
Notable events in the world of currency
A good finish against the Canadian dollar
The British pound improved from 1.5602 to 1.6071 last week, proving that it was able to do well against more currencies than the ones we have already looked at.
Very little difference for the pound against the Swiss franc
An opening rate of 1.6033 altered very little over those last three days of the week, ending in a slight drop to 1.6020 by Friday night against the Swiss currency.
A drop against the Icelandic currency
Things weren’t so good against the Icelandic currency as the pound dropped from 188.786 to 187.494 between Tuesday night and Friday night.
The Euro had a better week last week, as this news story – http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKLDE66F0T420100716 – at Reuters seems to indicate. But will the fairytale continue or will the Euro still be in danger of biting the dust overall, as so many experts have suggested it might?
Whatever you may feel about the Euro it is good to know that the pound pulled its socks up during the middle of last week. It got off to a bad start but the week as a whole did not end badly. Perhaps this is the most important news of all.