FRED – GBP/USD Daily Exchange Rate
- Rows
- 14,450
- Columns
- 2
Daily US Dollars per British Pound from 1971 to present. Major forex pair with decades of history.
AI analysis
GBP/USD Daily Exchange Rate – Dataset Analysis
1. Dataset Overview & Analytical Value This dataset, sourced directly from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (FRED) at https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.csv?id=DEXUSUK, provides over five decades of daily GBP/USD exchange rate observations spanning from 1971 to the present. FRED is one of the most authoritative macroeconomic data publishers globally, and the API-sourced CSV format suggests the data can be refreshed to near-current dates, making it valuable for both historical and contemporary analysis. With 14,450 daily observations, this is an exceptionally rich time series for studying long-run currency dynamics, macroeconomic regime shifts, and cross-asset correlations in financial markets.
2. Data Quality Observations Overall data quality is good but warrants attention in one area. The Date column is clean — zero nulls across all 14,450 rows with perfect distinct-value cardinality (14,450 unique dates), confirming no duplicate trading days are present. The DEXUSUK column, however, carries 560 null values (~3.9% of rows), which is the dataset's primary quality concern. These missing values almost certainly correspond to weekends, public holidays, and market closures rather than data collection failures — a normal characteristic of forex time series sourced from trading activity. Duplicate row counts are pending Parquet recomputation (Phase D), but the clean date cardinality strongly implies no duplicates exist. No type mismatches are flagged, and both columns are correctly typed as Date and Decimal respectively.
3. Key Column Distributions The DEXUSUK column tells a compelling macroeconomic story through its statistics. The mean of 1.674 and median of 1.608 reveal a modest right skew (skewness = 0.922), indicating that while most historical rates cluster in the lower half of the range, a long tail of higher-rate periods (likely the 1970s–1980s era of USD weakness) pulls the mean upward. The range of 1.052 to 2.644 is dramatic — nearly a 2.5x spread — reflecting decades of currency regime changes, political shocks (Brexit, Black Wednesday), and monetary policy divergence. The interquartile range of Q1=1.447 to Q3=1.830 captures the "typical" modern trading band, while 712 statistical outliers (~4.9% of non-null rows) likely correspond to historically extreme periods such as the post-Bretton Woods float, the 1985 Plaza Accord era, and post-Brexit volatility. The gap between mean and median is modest but meaningful, and analysts should consider log-transforming the series before regression modeling.
4. Recommended Join Key Columns The Date column is the clear and unambiguous join key for any cross-dataset correlation work. Its zero-null count, full distinctness, and standard date typing make it immediately suitable for time-series joins. When joining to datasets with different granularities (e.g., monthly economic indicators), a derived YearMonth key should be constructed by truncating the date. For datasets with trading-day-only coverage, an inner join will naturally handle the ~3.9% null-date gaps in DEXUSUK. No secondary join key is needed given the dataset's simplicity.
5. Suggested Correlation Datasets Several dataset pairings would yield high-value correlations with this series:
- UK–US Interest Rate Differentials (Bank of England Base Rate vs. Federal Funds Rate via FRED): Interest rate parity theory predicts strong inverse correlations; testing carry-trade dynamics over decades would be highly informative. - UK CPI and US CPI (ONS / BLS via FRED): Purchasing power parity analysis across 50+ years, comparing inflation divergence to exchange rate movements. - Crude Oil Prices (WTI/Brent) via FRED or EIA: The UK is a commodity-linked economy historically; oil shocks often coincide with sterling stress events. - FTSE 100 vs. S&P 500 Index Returns: Equity market divergence and risk-off flows frequently manifest in the GBP/USD rate, especially around major market events. - UK Trade Balance / Current Account Data (ONS): Structural currency drivers — persistent current account deficits have long been cited as a secular GBP headwind and could reveal lagged correlations.
Columns
- Date (date)
- DEXUSUK (decimal)
