Nappster

Hi

Last month I moved to California on a 3 year O1 visa and am thinking to transfer my savings out here. After seeing the pound fall from 2.00 to 1.75 against the dollar in the last few months, I'm worried that this slide will continue and I will lose the advantage of the strong pound - especially as there is talk of the UK going into a recession.

I'm wondering what the general opinion is; will the pound get stronger or weaker in the next 12 months? Has anyone else been in this situation? Have you left your savings in the UK or have you had them transferred to a US bank account? Is it financially beneficial to move the money out to the US? And is it worth doing a transfer with a specialist or simply through a high street bank?

goatherder

pound is tanking in my view - I'm moving all my cash to AUD and USD.

Seriously you need to work out if you want to deal with the currency risk - where do you want to spend your savings eventually ? If its England then keep the GBP. If its US then convert to USD. Also what are the savings in ? Equities / cash ?

My opinion (and its only that) is that the USD will continue to strengthen over the next couple of years and the GBP will devalue as we've seen against the EUR. My reason being is that I believe the US is further down the recession path and will turn before the UK does.

I am not a currency trader but I do have significant investments in these 3 currencies so watch what is happening in each market regularly.

I use ukforex for all of my currency needs and haven't been disappointed yet.

Goat.

bromleygirl

I agree with the previous poster. The US economy will climb out of it's recession before the UK does. Plus another factor to consider is that it's election year in the US. I can see the USD getting a bounce from this as the GBP continues to weaken.

I have already moved funds in anticipation of my move back. I used HiFX which worked really well. You will get the better rates if you transfer over 5K GBP.

chartreuse

We've been discussing this over in marriage based visas, in the context of falling UK house values - a double whammy for some of us.

A couple of us found this site very interesting: http://www.miketodd.net/encyc/dollhist.htm

Martin Brown

Couple of my friends are money brokers and they all seem to think, that the rate will carry on falling to around 1.5. The US interest rates are lower than UK so you need to work out your figures over whether exchange rate benefits exceeds the benefit obtain from interest rate difference

Dan725

I also think the pound is on the way down. The 2 to 1 thing was grossly overblown and well outside historical norms. Trouble is, people seem to have altered their way of thinking that this was the norm, and are now surprised it's headed south - in reality, IMO, it's just headed back towards the parity value at the mo.

Patrick Hasler

No body listens to me ..... I told my Son back in the UK to buy pounds now while they are strong but he didn't listen and so when he comes again it will cost him a lot more.

dbj1000

You mean to buy dollars while the pound is still strong?

Giantaxe

Given the pound's clear overvaluation on purchasing parity terms and the fact that the UK economy appears to be going into recession, it seems like a no-brainer that the pound will continue to fall. Otoh, we have two countries whose financial systems are both clearly in a mess. The nationalization of Freedie and Fannie is likely to end up as the mother of all bailouts, with the strapped taxpayer picking up most of the tab. This will likely prove a huge drag on US growth moving forward. So although I do think the pound will continue to decline in general against other currencies, I also expect the dollar's decline to resume, making a prediction of the dollar v pound rate very tough!

Kali-forniarrr

They just bailed out Freddie and Fanny. Very worrying..

goatherder

jesus..

watch the equity markets go thru the roof now.

usd is probably going to strengthen further as well on the basis of this.

Giantaxe

Short term.. very probable. Longer term, I doubt it. WaMu look like they may be next, btw.

Kali-forniarrr

No socialized healthcare but its ok to bail out commercial banks with tax payers money. ha ha. WTF.

Manc

corporate socialism is the new capitalism.

Michael

WaMu is still small potatoes in the big scheme of things. The biggest financial disaster would be if one of the Swiss banks went belly up. UBS has debts greater than 5x the GDP of the Swiss economy and Credit Suisse is not far behind. Who could possibly bail them out? The world bank?