It hardly seems possible that another week would have gone by, but the British pound has once more been up against all manner of major currencies. But will it have performed as well as it has in previous weeks?
An overview of the currency markets for April 30th – May 4th 2012
When we left the British pound toying with the US dollar last week, it was worth 1.6225. This then increased marginally to 1.6254. But although it stayed at that level for a day or two it then fell back to 1.6170, only recovering marginally to close out the week on 1.6173 as a result.
So fresh from that drama and slight loss, what occurred between the pound and the Euro? The opening rate here was 1.2265 and this benefited from a slight improvement to 1.2300 the next day. But what would the rest of the week hold? In truth it panned out slightly better than things had against the dollar. The pound rose to 1.2314 and then went slightly higher on Thursday, before dipping again to finish the week on 1.2316.
The opening rate against the Hong Kong dollar was 12.590, so would the pound go the same way here, displaying early rises followed by later losses? Indeed it did, as it climbed to 12.611 on day one and then fell back after that. In fact the final exchange rate of the week turned out to be a lot less than it had started with, finishing on 12.553 as a result.
So we have a disappointing set of results on the currency markets so far. But would this pattern continue with other currencies such as the New Zealand dollar? Let’s see.
The opening rate for the pound versus the Kiwi dollar was 1.9830. There was a marginal improvement over the first couple of days as the pound rose to 1.9845. But this was where the rot had set in with other currencies. Would it do the same here?
Actually it didn’t, and the pound kicked up a gear to finish the 2nd May on 1.9906. But it got better still over the next couple of days as it finally closed out the week on 2.0278, so this was at least an excellent result.
But could it replicate this result against the Australian dollar as well? Here the opening rate was 1.5551 but we saw an immediate improvement to 1.5602 the next day. From there things just kept on getting better, and by the end of the week the pound was soaring on 1.5801.
Notable events in the world of currency
Pound rises by half a cent against the Canadian dollar
The pound had a reasonably good week here, rising from 1.5940 to 1.5993 against the Canadian currency.
More good news against the Swiss franc
Here the pound rose from 1.4735 to 1.4796 over the course of the week.
But a drop against the Chinese currency
This could have been worse than it was, since the starting rate was 10.204 and this fell to 10.146 at the midweek stage. But things got better and the pound finished on 10.199.
It was certainly an interesting week with the British pound, as this story from the Reuters website shows. Hopefully the pound will continue to consolidate some good results, even though this week was perhaps not as strong as previous weeks have been. There are plenty of dramas going on around the world at present that have the power to upset the exchange rates, so we should simply remain aware of them so we can see what happens next.
It’s clear that the pound had slipped a little from the performance seen in the past couple of weeks. But hopefully we will see better news in the weeks to come. In any event we shall be here to report on it, whatever might happen.