The Big Six Exchange Rates: Report for Week of October 9 – 13, 2023

By: Dan Hogan, Quinnipiac Global Economics Research Team

Main Six Currencies Index

Source: Yahoo Finance and own calculations. Exchange rates are inverted to be USD per local currency (i.e., an increase indicates a stronger domestic currency) and then indexed to be 100 at the start of the period.

Throughout the week of October 9th – October 13th , there was slim variation in movement of the measured currencies against the USD. However, for the second time in two weeks, the Japanese Yen (Black) was the outlier, as it stayed well below the rest of currencies and finished the week down 0.8% against the USD. The Australian Dollar (Grey) gained a full percent against the dollar by mid-week but saw a major decline, closing out on October 13th at –0.8% against the USD. All three other currencies, the Canadian Dollar (Red), Euro (Blue) and British Pound (Green) moved relatively together, finishing the week at 0.2%, -0.1% and 0.0% gains against the USD respectfully.

Main Six Historical Trends

Source: Yahoo Finance and own calculations. Exchange rates are inverted to be USD per local currency (i.e., an increase indicates a stronger domestic currency. The center line is a rolling three-month average. The upper and lower boundaries are the average plus and average minus one standard deviation, respectively, for the same three-month period.

During the past week of October 9th – October 13th, a shift in trends has become more apparent. Since September, the Australian Dollar (AUD), Euro (EUR) and Japanese Yen (JPY) have seen continued devaluation as a slower rate than the summer. Over the past three weeks, the rate of decrease has continued to slow down; AUD has remained in the neighborhood of .64 against the USD, trading more steadily than its counterparts. The Candian Dollar (CAD) remains near it’s lower bound as it rebounded from last week’s devaluation and has remained rather sporadic to define a clear trend. Finally, the British Pound has started to stem its weakening against the USD, remaining closer to the lower bound than it has seen in past week. Overall, the weakening against the USD continues for all currencies, but at an ever decreasing rate.