Is now the time to buy Dollars?
 

Been a while since the pound was at the $1.60 mark is it giong to keep rising .Shall I transfer or shall I not.?:unsure:

Re: Is now the time to buy Dollars?
 

Hello Big Ron... you might want to look at this thread, for a laugh....


http://britishexpats.com/forum/showt...=exchange+rate

Have some time on your hands, it's 179 pages.....

The opening poster is worried at $2.10!!

I doubt anyone will call it right. If anything, someone will have a lucky guess. Bottom line is.... do you need to swap it over? Is there any chance you might go back to the UK? Why not transfer what you have to only? Having said that, if I'd transferred more when I could have back then, I wouldn't have "lost" so much!!

Good luck.

Re: Is now the time to buy Dollars?
 

I feel your pain. :frown:

Re: Is now the time to buy Dollars?
 

It breaks my heart... if only I hadn't had so much faith in the "strength" of the GBP!!:crown:

Re: Is now the time to buy Dollars?
 

I was mortified at $2.15, the norm was 2.25-2.39

Re: Is now the time to buy Dollars?
 

I'm struggling to "feel your pain" quite so intensely. ;)

Re: Is now the time to buy Dollars?
 

Difficult decision - we have our house sale money and cant decide what to do with it. However we think investing in Canadian property will over time earn us a better interest than in the bank ... I guess it depends on how safe you wanna be and how angry you will be if the dollar weakens more.

Re: Is now the time to buy Dollars?
 

For the most part I am going the other way now and am getting 30% savings on the FX. The best GBP I got was $2.62, for a fleeting moment.

Re: Is now the time to buy Dollars?
 

Set yourself a realistic FX rate, exchange at that and move on. Getting the 'best' rate is like chasing rainbows.

Re: Is now the time to buy Dollars?
 

Currency fair have good rates at the moment

Re: Is now the time to buy Dollars?
 

I used to work on 2.20 being a realistic rate (it was higher at the time). I rather miss those days:(

Re: Is now the time to buy Dollars?
 

Also, you'd think it's a good thing for going back the other way.... e.g. trips to the UK. But getting more pounds for your dollar doesn't help... everything's shot up in price instead!

Re: Is now the time to buy Dollars?
 

set mine at 2-1, who knows was there once and we don't need the money yet .

Re: Is now the time to buy Dollars?
 

I had to transfer a chunk at $1.85. That was horrible.

Re: Is now the time to buy Dollars?
 

Around $1.63 has been the resistance point for about 3 years now.

If it gets above $1.65 for any length of time (talking weeks or months rather than minutes or hours) then more research might be needed.

If it dips back down again then it's business as usual.

Re: Is now the time to buy Dollars?
 

It's impossible to determine the "best time" to buy currency because currency fluctuations aren't in any respect predictable over a long period of time.

Re: Is now the time to buy Dollars?
 

Thanks for that - shall watch carefully, means the area we were looking at property has just got better !

Re: Is now the time to buy Dollars?
 

One thing you can do is set up a trigger where you agree to buy a certain amount of currency at a rate you specify. You are obviously contractually bound but the nice thing is that currencies can spike overnight and you'd never know it by the time you're munching your breakfast. I managed to get some better deals over a period of one year, moving money from Canada to UK. I would be cautious bringing all my money over to Canada with the rate as it is. It's been like this for some time having reached about 1.45 a few years back and peaking at about 1.65. At least the decline seems to have subsided but I don't envy people exchanging at any of those rates.

Re: Is now the time to buy Dollars?
 

I think it's a fair bet that there will be a spike after the next election if the LibTorDems get thrown out. But it probably won't last long, particularly if Labour replace them.

Ultimately, it's not likely to improve a lot so long as the British economy is doing much worse than the Canadian economy.

Re: Is now the time to buy Dollars?
 

1.60 now

Re: Is now the time to buy Dollars?
 

There will come a point where the level is such that going back to the UK would be irresistible.

Re: Is now the time to buy Dollars?
 

Oh no, there wouldn't.

Re: Is now the time to buy Dollars?
 

Maybe not for you. But at 1.2 or 1.3 I'd seriously consider it.

Re: Is now the time to buy Dollars?
 

At anything like that I'd consider staying in Canada where my pension would be a more liveable amount.

I'm obviously more concerned about the C$/Euro rate.

But not that much.

Re: Is now the time to buy Dollars?
 

Another dropping day - now $1.60 to the £.

Only 40 more cents to drop then I will be happy !!!!

Re: Is now the time to buy Dollars?
 

I'm a bit confused by that. From your earlier posts I'd understood that you have some capital from a house sale in the UK (presumably in Sterling), and are wondering when to move into C$?

If that's correct why would a drop of 40c help?

Re: Is now the time to buy Dollars?
 

I'd like the CAD$ to stay strong against the GBP for the next 3 weeks while I'm spending in the UK. Then it can got the other way again.

Re: Is now the time to buy Dollars?
 

Sorry, bad use of terminology, meant I am holding out for $2 for a pound. I know I may have a very, very long wait !

Re: Is now the time to buy Dollars?
 

I dream of that!

It would be a 25% pay increase for me.

Re: Is now the time to buy Dollars?
 

Hard to see how the £ will appreciate (in the medium term) with a slacking economy and Carney at the helm. C$ could depreciate if global resource demand slows. My guess is 1.60-1.80 over the next two years.

Re: Is now the time to buy Dollars?
 

I also do not see appreciation in the £. Depreciation in the loonie seems more likely and I would welcome it. Not terribly patriotic, I know, of me but getting back to the C$ being the peso of the north would make me wealthier.

Re: Is now the time to buy Dollars?
 

Meh, couldn't care less about sterling, the question to my mind is whether now is the time to buy US dollars because it looks to me as though the USD is going up sharply because everyone is expecting US interest rates to move up, so they're thinking about buying US bonds.

Re: Is now the time to buy Dollars?
 

The loonie has actually taken a nose dive against the dollar and the pound in the last week.

I am painfully aware of this because I am in the process of selling a house in Canada and buying one in the UK. We don't get the proceeds of sale of our Canadian house until mid-July and then I will have to transfer the cash to the UK for completion on our purchase.

By the time I noticed the exchange rate was changing the loonie had gone into free-fall. I've taken out a future exchange contract to insure against any further losses. but in the meantime I've "lost" £9,000.

So the answer to the O.P's question on June 5th was yes, now on 24th June, not so much.

Re: Is now the time to buy Dollars?
 

Much of my income (Pensions) is in Sterling. Were 2 for 1 the case, I could retire tomorrow!:cool:

Re: Is now the time to buy Dollars?
 

$1.64 now and going up :fingerscrossed:

Re: Is now the time to buy Dollars?
 

Put some Canadian in charge of the BoE and look what happens :D