So the first full week of the New Year begins, and all eyes are on the currency markets to see whether the British pound performs well at the start of the year. We have all the answers here, so let’s see which currency does the best this week.
An overview of the currency markets for January 7th – January 11th 2012
The British pound started the week on 1.6018 and this immediately perked up to 1.6063 by the end of the day. There was a flattening off of the progress the following day, followed by a dip to 1.6018 on the 9th. But the best was definitely yet to come for the British currency, because on the 10th it started to head for better territory yet again. By the time the markets closed on Friday night it was on 1.6124 – a good end to the week.
But would the pound do just as well against the Euro? The opening rate here was 1.2310 and the pound started well, finishing day one on 1.2319. But this would be the best rate of the week as things turned out. It dropped back to 1.2277 the following day, only to keep falling and end up on a disappointing 1.2147 by Friday evening. Clearly this was not the result we wanted.
Now let’s see whether we could achieve something better against the Hong Kong dollar. Here the pound started on 12.417 and again there was good news on Monday as it rose to 12.451. A smaller increase the following day then led to a drop, returning the pound to 12.417. But this time there would be no last minute drop. Instead the pound soared to close out the week in fine style, reaching the heights of 12.500 in the process.
So far things have looked quite good. But as it turned out there would be a different pattern against the New Zealand dollar. Here we began on 1.9458 and immediately dropped to 1.9236 on day one. But it got worse from then on, as the pound dropped every day until Thursday, by which time it was down as low as 1.9028. It did perk up the last day of the week, bouncing back to 1.9194 in the process, but it was still lower than it had started on.
Given that the British pound often replicates its performance against the New Zealand dollar with the Australian dollar as well, let’s see if this turned out to be the case this week. The opening rate was 1.5381 and sure enough, by Thursday this had dropped to 1.5177. It perked up to 1.5258 on Friday but this was a similar result to the one we’d seen above.
Notable events in the world of currency
A slight drop for the pound against the Canadian dollar
Here the pound went from 1.5877 to 1.5864 over the course of the week.
A steady drop against the Swiss franc
Here the only way was down, as the pound fell from 1.4886 to 1.4767 during the week.
But better news against the Chinese yuan
The pound managed to go up from 9.9806 to 10.0246 during the week against the yuan.
So it was an interesting week all in all. The pound looked to have bagged some good results in some areas, although it didn’t manage to get the good result it wanted against the Euro. However it was the downward spiral against the New Zealand and Australian dollars that really got our attention. Perhaps this will be reversed next week; we wouldn’t want to see a similar outcome two weeks in a row.
So with that in mind we shall be back a week from now, with more in depth results for the British pound. Will we have better news to report or will it be more of the same? It remains to be seen what happens next, and we’ll be here to find out.