Welcome back to another currency report, where it is time for us to see how well – or badly – the British pound would perform over the coming week. As things turned out there was little to celebrate – but how bad would things be?
An overview of the currency markets for January 14th – January 18th 2012
So let’s begin with a look at the British pound’s performance against the US dollar. The week began with the pound on 1.6124 against the American currency, but by the end of day one this had dropped to 1.6050. There was a marginal improvement to 1.6051 the following day, but then things resumed their downward spiral. While there was another fight back on Thursday, it did not prevent the pound from sliding down to 1.5914 by the end of the week.
Next comes the Euro, and here the pound started on 1.2147 before falling back to 1.2030 on Monday evening. This improved to 1.2044 the next day and there was another slight increase the day after, but the good news stopped here. Eventually the pound was back on a slide again and ended up on a disappointing 1.1944 by the end of the week.
So was this to be a bad week all round for the British pound, or would it do better against the likes of the Hong Kong dollar? It began the week on 12.500 but again there was a bad start as it fell back to 12.442. The story continued in a similar pattern to the one we had seen against the other currencies. We saw a slight improvement followed by disappointment at the end of the week. In this case the pound closed out the week on 12.338.
By now perhaps we were expecting a little less from the currency. The starting rate against the New Zealand dollar was 1.9194 and again we predictably saw a drop to 1.9080 by Monday evening. The pound rallied to 1.9134 on Tuesday but again it had a rough second half of the week. By the time Friday came around it had managed no better than to finish on 1.9028.
So perhaps the result against the Australian dollar could be predicted in advance. Here we would expect another loss for the week, since we have seen four in a row so far. The opening rate was 1.5258 and this slid back to 1.5197 on Monday night. We did see the by now familiar perk up during the week, but unfortunately our prediction proved to be true. By Friday evening the pound had stalled on 1.5138.
Notable events in the world of currency
The pound drops against the Canadian dollar
Here the pound slid back from 1.5864 to 1.5757 throughout the course of the week.
But there was finally some good news against the Swiss franc
Here at last there was a shaft of light in an otherwise dreary week. The pound managed to climb from 1.4767 to 1.4866.
Another ray of light shines on the pound versus the Icelandic krona
Here too there was some good news, as the pound climbed from 206.863 to 204.957.
So at least we were able to find a couple of good results among the sea of disappointment last week. We can but hope things start to improve in the week coming up, as we explore the possibility of taking on other currencies in a stronger fashion. There may not be a complete change around, but if the pound puts in a marginally better performance, hopefully it will mean we can reclaim some of the losses we experienced this week.
Of course life rarely works out so well, so it will be a case of watching and waiting to see if things get any better this coming week. We shall be getting all the latest results and reporting back next week to see whether the pound did manage to turn things around. Until then, let’s hope we have better news to bring you.