scottymallo

i ve got 1.90 today much have dipped for a while

geedee

Exactly. That's what happens with airlines etc. But just look at who OPEC is.....

http://www.opec.org/library/faqs/aboutopec/q3.htm

geedee

OMG.... Cneldred, any idea why the pound is down nearly 6 cents this morning? That's the biggest fall I think I've ever seen? Is it anything to do with the rumour of joining the Euro?? Why does everyone hate the pound all of a sudden???? I wish I'd paid that tax bill

TheBear

Manufacturing output and mortgage lending down dramatically...increases likelihood of lower IRs. Oil up, helps CAN$. Brown and Darling borrowing way to much and so flooding the markets with UK bonds at a time when there are few investors. All of this makes the pound very weak. I would expect to see the CAN$ around 1.50 by spring

Danny B

Anything to do with this?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7764741.stm

sas-lou

I only hope the exchange rate goes through the roof this afternoon .. i'm exchanging cash at M&S tomorrow .. now i shouldnt complain, the money i got was from selling items in the house, a gift from my grandfather and the kids pocket money (which i give to them at £1 - $2) it only totals about £2k so anything is better than £1 - $1 ..

Alan2005

Yeah - if it was expected (which it was) it would already be priced in. I suspect the rate would be worse if it wasn't for the shenanigans going on with the government

Posidrive

And just when I start to think that I'm beginning to understand the markets, the UK drops interest rates and the Canadian dollar immediately starts lossing value against it.

I give up

TheBear

Read the comments above for the explanation. The rate cut was priced in, and then Oil has dropped big time today, and Canada is an Oil/commodity currency. It may well be the pound creeps back up towards $2 again if we don't see any more terrible news and rates look like thy're going to hold.

Southcote

Weren't you looking at $1.50 by the Spring ??

TheBear

Yep...I talk out of my @rse all the time. Exchange rates are going to be all over the place in the short term and I shouldn't pretend I know what is going to happen. If Oil continues to fall along with commodities then the £ might fair better than the CAN$, but if Oil starts to go up again, and our economy worsens then it will be the other way. I'm currently opening an HSBC account in canada and going to move half my money over there...that way I won't win or lose, but at least I'll sleep.

In the long term I think Canada is a much better place to be as Oil will go up again, even if it's a few years away, and because they have stuff (commodities) to sell that the rest of the world wants, Canada will recover early...the UK has lost so much manufacturing etc that it will take much longer to recover.

mr.mac

Do you think thats a good idea?

funily enough my wife and I were talking about this today. We are planning to save a certain amount of money by this time next year ready for our move to canada. She still has her canadian bank account and we were debating if we should transfer our current money into that now before the rate gets worse (which we think it will) or to put it an ISA?

TheBear

I'm not qualified to give advice, but here's where I stand, at the mo the rate is OK, if Oil goes down into the 30s and global growth is forecast to fall further, reducing demand for commodities, which it could well do, then the CAN$ will go down, how much it will go down against the £ is the big question. Our economy is truly screwed (house prices now 18.1% off peak and that's before redundancies! In auction properties are going for 30-40% off peak), but again how much of this is priced into the current exchange rate is hard to say (Eur 1.15!). If you split your savings between the two currencies you will not lose, but you won't gain either. My gut feeling is that Oil will bottom out soon, so the CAN$ fall may slow, but if the global markets haven't quite yet grasped the extent of how much the UK economy has been built on debt and not growth, then the pound could drop another 20-40%, so I'd be inclined to save a greater proportion of my money in CAN$, especially as that is going to be our home of the future.

Alan2005

Can't disagree with any of that.

Rate heading up to 1.90 today - think the market had priced in a bigger rate cut.

johnh009

The recession is World-wide. I do not think you can win wherever you go. Trying to beat currency exchange rates is risky and you probably get more interest in the UK.

http://www.xe.com/