Here we are again with another week’s worth of currency exchange results involving the British pound. Although of course with Easter Monday making the week slightly shorter, we could only get four days’ worth of results to share. So here they are – and would they favour the British pound or not?
An overview of the currency markets for April 9th – April 13th 2012
The opening rate for the pound against the US dollar was 1.5855. Once the markets opened again on Tuesday morning the pound edged up slightly to 1.5859. Again it looked good the following day when the pound kept edging up further to close out the day on 1.5898. In fact this set a pattern that meant the pound did well on every single day of the week except for the last one. But even then it dropped back only a little to finish in a better position on 1.5940.
As far as the pound against the Euro went, it was starting from a rate of 1.2132 for the new week. But here it didn’t start well, dropping to 1.2093 when the markets started up again. Luckily things improved the very next day when the pound jumped up to 1.2107. And there was another good day of results due the following day too, as we leaped ahead further to 1.2125. A marginal fall on Friday left us on 1.2124 for the week, so here we lost a little overall.
So could we do any better against the Hong Kong dollar? Well, we started out on Tuesday morning with a rate of 12.312 on the cards, which soon went up to 12.315 on Wednesday. But would things carry on in the same vein? They did indeed continue like this and finally the week closed out on 12.372, which was a good result for the week.
Next let’s see whether things went well against the New Zealand dollar as well. The opening rate was 1.9444 but could we get closer to the two dollar mark? In fact we dropped nearly half a cent on the first day back, closing on 1.9401. We stayed around the same level for the next couple of days, but then we ended up dropping way down to 1.9214 to close the week on a disappointing note.
Finally let’s see how things progressed with the Australian dollar. The rate here to start with was 1.5421, and by the time we reached Wednesday we were slightly better off on 1.5428. But again the rest of the week didn’t pan out as we would have liked, as we finished on 1.5324.
Notable events in the world of currency
A slight improvement against the Canadian dollar
It wasn’t all bad for the British pound last week as it climbed from 1.5823 to 1.5843 against the Canadian currency.
But there was a slight fall against the Swiss franc
Here the news was worse, as the pound fell from 1.4589 to 1.4569.
And better news to close on as the pound improved against the Chinese yuan
Here the pound was doing better, climbing from 9.9973 to 10.047 over the course of the week.
Things looked worse for the Euro this week as the news stories on Bloomberg and other sites reported its difficult position. It seems as if the Euro is still struggling against most other major world currencies, thanks to the troubles that are still going on in the Euro region. One wonders where all of this will end – and when.
So there we have it – another week of exchange rates which points to a reasonable performance by the pound in some areas and not such a good time in other areas. We shall be back to explore the next set of results next week, but in the meantime do keep an eye on how the British pound is performing. You never know what might happen further on down the line.
I enjoy reading these weekly articles about the pound; I wouldn’t have a clue how well or badly it was doing otherwise. The main thing for me is to find out how well it is doing because I travel a lot. This means I am always swapping the pound into other currencies, some of which are included in this report. I have to find out the others on my own but this always gives me a good basis on which to work. I hope you intend to keep it up and have a regular weekly report for a long time to come.
I agree with you Trevor – I never had any idea about the pound or how its performance was related to any other occurrences around the world. I always thought of it as a simple head to head between two currencies, but as I have learned it is much more than that. So many different factors can come into play that you wouldn’t otherwise think about.