Pound overtakes Argentine peso to become 2016’s worst performing currency

The pound posted a third week of declines spurred by the Brexit vote, winning itself the title of 2016’s worst performer among major currencies.

Sterling’s rally on Friday barely dented its 2.7 per cent slide versus the dollar in the preceding four days. The U.K. currency this week overtook the Argentine peso as the biggest loser versus the dollar among 31 major peers in 2016 as investors continued to digest the fallout from the June 23 referendum decision to leave the European Union.

“Sterling’s going to fall considerably further as the effects of that uncertainty on investment and growth emerge from the gloom,” Kit Juckes, a macro-strategist at Societe Generale SA in London, wrote in a note to clients.

The pound rose 0.3 per cent to US$1.2941 at 4:55 p.m. in London, leaving it down 2.5 per cent this week and more than 12 per cent this year. It briefly erased its daily gain after a U.S. Labor Department report showed a bigger-than-estimated jump in June payrolls.


Sterling advanced 0.5 per cent to 85.30 pence per euro, for a 1.7 per cent weekly slide.

1985 and 2007

On Wednesday, Britain’s currency touched a 31-year low of US$1.2798 after the closure of a number of property funds echoed the real-estate tremors at the start of the financial crisis in 2007. U.K. consumer confidence plunged the most in 21 years in a special post-referendum survey conducted from June 30 to July 5, data showed Friday.

That the pound surpassed the Argentine peso as the world’s worst performer is all the more remarkable given that the South American nation’s economy shrank in 2014 and that President Mauricio Macri has removed most of the currency controls that had been propping up the exchange rate. It’s only in December that the peso was devalued.

Financial Post