Back at the end of May the British pound was worth 1.5921 against the Australian dollar. The hope was that we would be able to build on this during the following month, but was this what happened, or was there something else in store?
The first day of June didn’t start well. The pound ended the day on 1.5865, and we then had the weekend to ponder the matter. A further marginal drop to 1.5827 the following Monday made it clear this was not going to be an easy month. However even with that in mind we were probably not expecting a week end rate of 1.5675, although it had been lower at 1.5598 the day before so it had recovered slightly since then.
The hope now was that the pound would start to recover over the next week so we could start getting back to where we had started at the very least. Unfortunately this wasn’t what happened and when the pound finished that week it had slipped back further to 1.5474. So the question we were asking ourselves now was whether this was turning into a prolonged slide that would get even worse as the month went on, or whether it would stall and then improve.
Things were looking up a little by the time this week was over, because the pound had regained a little ground and finished on 1.5530. However this was very much a last minute thing because the exchange rates over the course of the week were not good, very hesitant on the part of the pound.
Perhaps things would improve a little further by the time the month was over though. This was the hope, but by the 27th the pound had fallen further to 1.5481. If we hoped for a little perk up by the time the final exchange rate was decided we got exactly the opposite. In fact we finished the month on a disappointing 1.5293 – a long way from the 1.5921 we had started on. Let’s hope July gets better.