Pauljarv

I'm living in the States and have just sold my house. I was planning to do a swift transfer from my UK bank account into my US one as I heard I get near to market rates and it only costs me 25-35 quid.

I did hear that interest rates have gone up in the UK, foprgive my ignorance but is that likely to make the pound stronger v the $ or weaker.

PS: anyone who can tell me how I can type a pound sign over here would be helping me too!!

Manc

alt key together with 1 5 6

£

Pauljarv

Just makes a noise when I do it, I'm sure I'll work it out, thanks though.

Dan725

Theoretically speaking, it should make the pound stronger - but in reality, there are too many other factors that can affect interest rates, like stock, employment data, oil prices, the global security and risk situation, even down to nonsense things like a large company chairman seeming cautious or optimistic when giving a speech!

I've been glued to watching the exchange rates for sometime now, and since the interest rates started rising in the UK, it does not appear to have had much impact on the exchange rate, which has fluctuated between 1.79 and 1.87 since the high early this year of 1.90. Foreign exchange is so unpredictable, on occasion the rate can change for the better or worse by 4 cents some days.

The short answer is, the rate may spike because of an interest rate hike (or even an anticipated one), but then something else will come along and it will swing the other way. At least it is still generally running at a high level for the pound (1.82 today) and has been for some time, but for how long it will stay this way is, really, anyones guess.

scrubbedexpat099

I spent some time folowing it as well.

There is no way of knowing, and if I or anybody else knew, we would be keeping it to ourselves, making a fortune etc.

The best bet is to keep the money in the currency you are going to need it in if you can not take the potential downside.

US savings rates are crap compared to UK ones, but a minor movement in rates could easily more than wipe out a years interest differential.

Duncs

In theory higher interest = higher pound as return for an investor goes up. As said though other factors will have an impact.

Personally i think the dollar will fall further as it been propped up by large purchases of $ by Asian Banks to keep their own currencies down and stimulate their damaged economies with export growth. However Japan is now starting to warm up so once we get an inflationary pressure in it it will be bye bye $ and down it goes. The trend is all south and it basically comes down to the huge USA current account deficit which hit over 6% of US GDP last month and some economists think it could make 7% (a normal rate would be 2-3%). That means the only way to correct it is a much lower $.

But hey i could be wrong and i dont have any money to invest in my theory anyway.

g1ant

Between 12:30 and 1pm today (UK time) the dollar lost 2.5 cents against the pound 1.82 > 1.845. That's probably the biggest jump in the smallest time that I've seen in exchange rates between pound and dollar.

BritGuyTN

the reason for this is the much lower than expected jobs growth data and oil setting a new high

Dan725

Yep - just goes to show how fickle the currency market is. Seems that the Bank of England interest hike has had little to no effect, but the job data has caused some rumblings. Its a lottery

Duncs

Its not really it has genuine factors behind the moves. A lottery is an entirely random event with a single statistical probability of an event occuring eg 6 numbers = 14 million different combinations hence a 14 million to one chance you will win the Powerball.

With currency exchanges many different factors make up the market choices and these represent a kind of group think analysis creating a floating value. The factors concerned cover many things from general economic conditions to interest rates. It can seems hard to read and it is but its not a random chance event.

scrubbedexpat099

The increase in rates had already been factored in, it was widely expected.

Pulaski

:lecture: .... And you must use the key pad to the right hand side of the keyboard - or the "blue" numbers on a laptop (keys "789", "uio", "jkl", & "m"), otherwise it won't work.

Pulaski

Another random factor is money converted for investment purposes or other "one-way" conversions.

Every day the FX trades around the world total more than $1,000,000,000,000, and all but a tiny tiny fraction are interbank trades that reverse before the end of the day. A few years ago I worked for a business that need to convert about $700,000,000, and we were told that if we made that trade all on the same day it would shift the $/£ rate by almost 1¢. ..... because it was a substantial one-way trade.