Edo

..would you take advantage of the falling loonie and convert your savings into CAD or would you continue to keep them in £. I know for years people have been saying that you should have a diverse currency portfolio and its generally safer to keep it in different countries as well, but do you see value in doing that especially if you never intend to leave Canada.

Piff Poff

I would possibly convert a sum but leave some - especially for vacations. A trip back at the mo' would cost a fortune. As you may be aware, our spare funds go into cars, they are our portfolio lol

Shard

Convert at 2.20 in about 9 months time. No need for country diversification between UK and Canada.

Edo

Good point but some analysts are predicting that CAD will start raising in value around March 2016.

Stinkypup

I wouldn't hold your breath- I'm not optimistic given the oil price isn't 'going anywhere but down for the foreseeable future

BristolUK

On what day and is that 2.20 am or pm and is it Canadian or UK time?

withabix

Seems to be a glass ceiling at around 2.09 at the moment - its been there or close to there three times in the last few months (including twice in the last week) and then profit-taking kicked in.

Sterling is still being pegged back by the weak European economy and also the strength of the USD, which seems to result in an 'operating range' for the GBP:CAD rate.

BoE committee still seems to be heavily biased towards holding the interest rate - I think that is probably the parameter that will cause the next possible step in the exchange rate 'range', especially if Canada goes for a slightly negative interest rate, although I suspect the markets have probably priced that in already, seeing as the intention has been banded around...

Just my thoughts. I transferred a chunk over last weekend, getting just under 2.09 with HiFx.

Engineer_abroad

Despite the weak loonie both currencies are reasonably secure. Are you looking at this as long term investment? If so, why do you want a diverse portfolio of currencies, the returns are poor on currency, yet low risk. If you want to put your money somewhere for investment check out some of the mutual funds which you can get. Banks in Canada make it reasonably easy to set up investment accounts where the bank act as your broker. RBC have some great info on their website.

Snowy560

I found it just too stressful after changing up the money from the sale of the house and getting it wrong. I had to make myself stop looking at the rate. It took me months to get over it.

After that, I made the decision to leave the rest of the £ where they are. I am inclined to buy some more premium bonds instead and would be curious to know if others think along these lines as well. A million (£) would be very welcome.

However, I just might do a bit of Christmas spending on my UK credit card. At times like this, despite the card charges, it usually works quite well.


S

Tootlepootle

I got a very pleasant surprise on the rate when I paid in my cheque from HMRC!!

scrubbedexpat091

I wouldn't mind having some UK pounds or US dollars socked away somewhere at this point. The northern peso is back, reminds me of when I first arrived. It was around this level if I recall correctly back then.....

Getting tempting to apply for jobs in Bellingham though, easy commute from Abbotsford. Seems the going rate for hotel jobs there is 11-12 US which translates to 15.35 to 16.75 roughly at current rates, not too shabby really.


I'd guess we are into the mid 60 cent range by summer to the USD$ if not worse.

pinzo

I just changed a chunk of pounds to dollars this last week.
You never know what is going to happen but I think as someone else said, it's been hovering around the 2.09 mark for a while now so I decided to change now.
Yes in a few months it could go up to 2.10, 2.15 or 2.20, but who knows, maybe it will go down too.
I have to not look too much now I changed it over, and I'm happy with the rate I got and we are going to make use of the money we have so to me it's worth changing over right now.

Hurlabrick

I would convert at anything over £1 = $2. My recce visit is May 2016 and will take the opportunity to open a Canadian bank account and start moving money across, so hoping the rate holds (although with record low oil prices and a relatively healthy UK economy, hoping that it will hold for 18 months or so)

Shard

I think you can be happy with your rate. Anything over 2.00 is a bonus IMO (and anything under, just unfortunate timing). I do think the Loonie will depreciate further, but at least you have already locked in some gains.

JamesM

I agree. I think we'll see a return to 2.2/2.3 in the next year or two.

Canada will be in recession for a while.