Welcome back to our currency report, which as ever focuses on how the British pound is faring against several other major currencies. Will it perform well this time around or is there bad news to come?
An overview of the currency markets for June 3rd – June 7th 2013
As the week began the British pound was sitting at 1.5235 against the US dollar, and this immediately improved to 1.5271 by the end of day one. There was another marginal improvement on the following day, taking the pound to 1.5297 in the process. In fact it did not take too much longer to realise the pound was on an upward curve all week, closing Friday evening on an exceptionally good 1.5576.
The opening rate for the pound versus the Euro was 1.1714, so could we achieve something similar here? The first day was promising as the pound rose to 1.1739 but it then dropped back to 1.1684 on day two. This was to be an up and down affair – a marked contrast to the performance the pound put in against the dollar. However the pound did end up slightly better off than it had started, as it closed Friday night on a rate of 1.1746.
As far as the Hong Kong dollar was concerned, the pound did well here too during the week: mirroring the performance against the US dollar more than the Euro. The opening rate was 11.829 and this improved to 11.855 on Monday night. The pound gradually made more improvements during the week and by the time Friday evening arrived it was worth an impressive 12.090.
Let’s move on to the New Zealand dollar now and see whether the pound could improve by a similar amount there as well. The opening rate was 1.9053 and while there was an improvement on day one, the pound dipped back slightly to 1.9034 by Tuesday night. Fortunately though, this would be the worst rate we would have to contend with. Instead of being on a slippery slope to results we wouldn’t like, we managed to soar to a Friday evening closing rate of 1.9567 instead.
The final question was whether the British pound could achieve a similarly good rate against the Australian dollar. Very often the Aussie and New Zealand dollars mirror each other in terms of the exchange rate against the British pound, so did we have another good result in the offing here? The pound started with a rate of 1.5861 and although it fell to 1.5798 by Monday evening, it was on the up for the remainder of the week. This meant it finished with a rate of 1.6358 by the time the week was over.
Notable events in the world of currency
Good news against the Canadian dollar
Here we had more to celebrate, as the pound rose from 1.5737 to 1.5937 against the Canadian dollar.
But a slide against the Swiss franc
There was disappointment here as the pound fell from 1.4532 to 1.4416 against the Swiss franc.
Back to good news against the Icelandic krona
Here the pound went from 187.203 to 189.215 over the course of the week.
So it was a good week all in all for the British pound. Despite the fact there were a couple of weaker results that saw the pound slide from its previous position, there was still a lot to celebrate. Indeed, the pound did manage to achieve some very good results against the likes of the US dollar, so we had plenty to be thankful for. The question now is whether we can replicate this for the future or whether this will be the best result the pound will get for a while.
Of course we shall be here next week with the next set of results, so you can see whether the pound could keep up this performance or whether it lost ground. It will be interesting to see which way things go.