Here we are with another currency report for you, delving into what has been happening on the currency markets as we approach the end of the year. Will the pound end 2011 on a good note, or will it be struggling as we check the currency converter for the final trading days of the year?
An overview of the currency markets for December 12th – December 16th 2011
The last time we caught up with the British pound against the US dollar it had an exchange rate of 1.5687. Things did not start well in the new week though, as the pound had fallen to 1.5575 after two days of trading. It then fell to 1.5486 the following day, but fortunately it managed to climb back up to 1.5542 by the end of the week. It still didn’t represent a good trading result though.
But where would we stand against the Euro? Here we were starting from 1.1721 and it seemed from early indications that the only place to go from here was up. We climbed in value over the early days of the week, reaching a heady high of 1.1918 on the 14th. But we slipped a little to finish the week on a still impressive 1.1896.
Next let’s see how things are progressing against the Hong Kong dollar. Here we were starting on a rate of 12.203, but we lost a lot of ground over the first few days, until we dipped down to a low rate of 12.053. Could we recover any ground before the week was up? Indeed we could, but even though we managed to climb back to 12.096 it still left us a lot lower than we had been at the start of the week.
Moving on to the New Zealand dollar now, we started the week on 2.0344. After a reasonable initial day we fell to 2.0342 on Tuesday, but then climbed to an impressive 2.0610 by Thursday evening. Unfortunately we couldn’t hang onto that rate and we eventually finished up on 2.0350 on Friday night.
Finally it’s the turn of the Australian dollar. Here we were starting on 1.5447 so would we follow a similar pattern to the one we had experienced in New Zealand? We did in fact dip down to 1.5380 by the end of the 13th, although we picked up again the following day to end on 1.5522. We did better than this the day after before dropping down to finish the week on 1.5537.
Notable events in the world of currency
A small change against the Canadian dollar
Not much of note happened here, as the pound went from 1.6027 at the beginning of the week to 1.6057 at the end.
A slight improvement against the Swiss franc
This was a very small change for us too, as we rose from 1.4454 to 1.4572 over the course of the week.
But better news against the Icelandic krona
Here the pound managed to soar from 186.601 to 189.867 by the end of a successful week.
One of the main stories still hitting the headlines in the currency world is of course the Euro. But as we examine the strength of the pound we can see that it is important to see how much the pound is worth against the Euro. According to Reuters the pound was experiencing its best exchange rates against the Euro in around ten months. One can only expect this picture to continue in roughly the same way, as the struggling single currency does little to bolster anyone’s beliefs that it could still be around for the long haul.
But the report did mention that the pound has its own challenges to meet, so perhaps we cannot expect it to gain much more. It remains to be seen whether the Euro will follow us into 2012, and whether it will still be around to report on once the next year comes to an end.
It seems like the pound had a reasonable week this time around. I can never quite keep up with how well or badly it is doing, but it’s good to know it is making slight improvements for the most part. Better that than constant declines. But I think the currency market is such that you will always get ups and downs no matter what else might be going on. That’s part of the reason I enjoy keeping up!
It’s obvious that the pound – or any other currency you name – will have its ups and downs. At the moment the pound is doing rather more badly than it did in this report. We just have to accept what is going on. We don’t have any direct influence on it, after all. I wish we did but then things would be very different, wouldn’t they? Keep watching – you never know what’s coming next.