We’ve had a couple of disappointing weeks for the pound of late. The big question now is whether it managed to up its game on the currency converter for the week of October that ran from Monday 11th onwards. We are hoping for better news but will we get it?
An overview of the currency markets for October 11th – October 15th 2010
The British pound made a small gain against the US dollar last time, rising to 1.5854 in the process. But could it do better this week?
We started the week on a promising note as we pushed up to 1.5934 on Monday evening. But the following two days saw us fall back and lose that momentum. It was looking like it would be another poor week but this time the pound had other things in mind. A strong finish saw the pound achieve a new high of 1.6055 on Friday night.
So a good result to begin with, but could we do the same with the Euro? Last time we ended on 1.1427, and once again we had a strong start. This time we climbed to 1.1446 by Tuesday evening, but we still had three days to go until the close of the week. Unfortunately we dropped back to 1.1348 on the 13th – unlucky for the pound, clearly. Luckily we fought back and finished the week on 1.1396, so at least we minimised the losses.
Next up we have the Hong Kong dollar to look at. Last time the pound was on 12.300 here, and a good start on Monday was squandered to let us fall back to 12.288 on the 12th. Fortunately that would prove to be the low point of the week and the pound fought back strongly to take the initiative from then on. This led to a great success overall – and a final rate on Friday night of 12.455.
The pound did badly against the New Zealand dollar last time, crawling home on 2.1252 in the end. We had a different story to tell here though, as we dropped to 2.0986 after just two days of trading. The following day saw the low point of 2.0888 before we finally shot back up to 2.1156 at the end of the week. At least we didn’t lose too much ground.
Finally let’s see whether the pound could fight back against the Australian dollar. Our opening rate here was 1.6286 and the low point of the week occurred on the 13th. This saw a closing rate for the day of 1.6032. Could we improve on this to get back to where we had started? Not quite – but we did crawl back to 1.6116.
Notable events in the world of currency
The Kiwi dollar loses some ground against its Aussie counterpart
A drop from 0.7663 to 0.7617 occurred over the week for the Kiwi dollar, so not the best time here.
A slight drop overall for the pound against the Canadian dollar
It could have been worse here, as we went from 1.6190 to 1.5886 at the midweek point. But we finished on 1.6142.
Very little difference between the Swiss franc and the Canadian dollar
The rate here went from 1.0557 to 1.0552 overall – very little to talk about.
It makes sense that the world’s leaders would disagree over some aspects of their currencies. This was made obvious at the IMF annual meeting last week. You can read more about what happened here. Exchange rates made big news at the meeting, as you will see when you read the different events that took place there.
So we have some more encouraging results this week instead of the bad news that we were hit with last time around. The question now is how long it will last for. Will it be such a good week next week too?
It’s hard to be really positive about moderately good news concerning the pound. I know it will probably be back down again the following week and that’s what is so depressing. I think the pound is stuck well and truly in the doldrums at the moment. Hopefully it will get better soon but I think we may be in for quite a wait. The pound just doesn’t seem to have much punch at the moment.