Buy dollars now or wait?

[simmo]

I would argue that the fed has plenty of scope for rate cuts, the japs went to 0% in the nineties.

The US' are 1.5% at the moment. I don't see how they can have plenty of scope for cuts if there is just 1.5% left to cut.

If ours is 4.5% we have more room for maneouvre and the speculation (as always this can change 6 months ago they were saying it was going to rise because inflation was spiralling) is that we are going to cut and cut aggresively.

Indeed Eddie George has been criticised quite heavily recently for not cutting sooner (i.e following the fed's inititiave to cut aggresively), but George's objective set by the (Labour) government was to keep inflation at around 2% and not to stave of a recession.

 

[Hornblower]

Errr.... so should I buy $ now?

 

[Lokki 7]

The US' are 1.5% at the moment. I don't see how they can have plenty of scope for cuts if there is just 1.5% left to cut.

If ours is 4.5% we have more room for maneouvre and the speculation (as always this can change 6 months ago they were saying it was going to rise because inflation was spiralling) is that we are going to cut and cut aggresively.

Indeed Eddie George has been criticised quite heavily recently for not cutting sooner (i.e following the fed's inititiave to cut aggresively), but George's objective set by the (Labour) government was to keep inflation at around 2% and not to stave of a recession.

Iceland raised their rates by 6% today to 18%, would that tempt you to put your money over there?

 

[Stat Brother]

We booked a little trip to Vegas, 2 weeks ago, for the end of Nov.
At the time of booking $1.78, now we can't get over $1.49.

All we are doing is watching the situation and waiting for 'the pound has rallied slightly against the dollar'.

Nobody is saying below $1.40, so I don't think we will lose out, to much, over the next couple of weeks, but might just might claw something back.

But what the fook do I know, I'm a postie.

 

[sten_super]

Iceland raised their rates by 6% today to 18%, would that tempt you to put your money over there?

That's the motivation behind the rise, isn't it?

The japs went to 0% in the 90s because there was a massive long-term problem in their economy; stagflation. If the US did so it would be a signal of massive structural problems, something that the US would not want to own up to.

Oh and Eddie George hasn't be the governer of the BoE for 5 years!

 

[simmo]

Iceland raised their rates by 6% today to 18%, would that tempt you to put your money over there?

I noticed that. Off course in normal times yes (not that I have enough money to do this sort of thing but those whom are fund managers and have multi millions to invest it matters greatly too) but in answer to the original question as to whether as to whether you should get $ now. Who knows?

These are not normal times, I am not sure where this is going but one thing about the depression (in 1929) was that it was global as this is and it also started in the USA. In my lifetime I can only remember recession which tended to be in the UK only (other countries in the world may have been doing ok while we were in trouble and then we got out of it).

The financial world seems to go from one major event to another in the space of hours at the moment (did you see that the Ukraine and Hungary? had to be bailed out by the IMF over the weekend). If anyone knew what was going to happen in the next 24 hours they would make a fortune as the fluctuations seem to be so wild, but who at the moment knows what is going to happen.

 

[Bozza]

who at the moment knows what is going to happen.

 

[simmo]

That's the motivation behind the rise, isn't it?

The japs went to 0% in the 90s because there was a massive long-term problem in their economy; stagflation. If the US did so it would be a signal of massive structural problems, something that the US would not want to own up to.

Oh and Eddie George hasn't be the governer of the BoE for 5 years!

Apologies Mervyn King (he actually looks like an Eddie George banking clone really)

 

[Garage_Doors]

That they predicted 1.77 for October and we're in the mid 1.50s, is not giving me much faith in their reliability.

Would have been happy with mid 1.5's yesterday, these are only mid rates, i pay my suppliers in the far east in USD and they only gave a rate 1.52, 2 points down on the published rates.!!

 

[Mellor 3 Ward 4]

we are going to the states and i bought my dollars at $2 back in the spring, as historically i personally had not seen a better tourist rate than that so am feeling rather smug at the moment.

imo, with the prospect of much lower interest rates here in the uk, i can't see much improvement.

 

[Icy Gull]

Errr.... so should I buy $ now?

Hope you didn't panic and buy, moving up again after the US interest rate cut. Up to 1.66

I have no idea if this is good advice but I'd wait until a couple of days before the next likely UK interest rate cut to buy, you should get a good idea of if it's gonna happen from the financial news.

Interest rate cuts on either side of the Atlantic seem to have an instant effect on the value of the dollar to sterling