US ($) Currency Thread 2

whatusername

Interesting article actually and one that shows how unpredictable the forex markets are

BMAC_3

So, what to do .... I'm off to LA in 4 weeks, do I wait until after the election to get dollars or order now? Crystal ball anyone?

sabretoothtigger

Flip a silver dollar and if its eagles then fly with it :j

Sterling Index At 1300 GMT
 
      (JAN 2005=100)     INDEX      GBP/USD     EUR/GBP 
     PREVIOUS CLOSE      79.2       1.5200      0.8686 
               OPEN      79.1       1.5198      0.8699 
              10 AM      79.2       1.5225      0.8698 
               NOON      79.2       1.5234      0.8694 
               2 PM      79.3       1.5260      0.8684 
               4 PM 
 

April 29, 2010 09:01 ET (13:01 GMT)

jackieblack

Hi guys.... I'm back!

It didn't know it was buy 15 nights get 8 extra free!:D

Had a fairly anxious 36 hours after getting an email on the Friday evening from Virgin Atlantic confirming our flight home on the Saturday was cancelled and we couldn't get hold of anyone from Virgin Holidays. We ended up at a Comfort Inn at LAX (not too bad, apart from the 'drive by' shooting! :eek:) but, once I'd managed to speak to VH on Sunday lunchtime they were superb and, even though we'd only booked a fly-drive + 3 nights accomodation with them, Virgin Holidays put us up in the Hyatt Regency at Anaheim for 5 nights, followed by the Hyatt at Long Beach for a further 2 nights.
We were very lucky, I know other people weren't as fortunate. We wouldn't have chosen to spend 8 days in LA, but if you have to be stranded somewhere, there are worse places than Disneyland! :rotfl:

Exchange rate seems to have been ok while we were away, which will help with the credit card bills. (Not so good the last couple of days, since we arrived home though ....... :think:)

Mic2904

BMAC wrote: »

So, what to do .... I'm off to LA in 4 weeks, do I wait until after the election to get dollars or order now? Crystal ball anyone?

We have now ordered dollars for our holiday in JUne. CrownCurrency is offering 1.539 for beginning of June.

whatusername

jackieblack wrote: »

Hi guys.... I'm back!

It didn't know it was buy 15 nights get 8 extra free!:D

Had a fairly anxious 36 hours after getting an email on the Friday evening from Virgin Atlantic confirming our flight home on the Saturday was cancelled and we couldn't get hold of anyone from Virgin Holidays. We ended up at a Comfort Inn at LAX (not too bad, apart from the 'drive by' shooting! :eek:) but, once I'd managed to speak to VH on Sunday lunchtime they were superb and, even though we'd only booked a fly-drive + 3 nights accomodation with them, Virgin Holidays put us up in the Hyatt Regency at Anaheim for 5 nights, followed by the Hyatt at Long Beach for a further 2 nights.
We were very lucky, I know other people weren't as fortunate. We wouldn't have chosen to spend 8 days in LA, but if you have to be stranded somewhere, there are worse places than Disneyland! :rotfl:

Exchange rate seems to have been ok while we were away, which will help with the credit card bills. (Not so good the last couple of days, since we arrived home though ....... :think:)

Glad you had a ball and didn't encounter some of the hassles others did.

jackieblack

whatusername wrote: »

Glad you had a ball and didn't encounter some of the hassles others did.

Yes, we know we were very lucky. In these circumstances it definitely benefitted us that we had booked with Virgin Holidays, rather than booking everything independently.

So far everything on CC statement showing the exchange rate at over $1.52, a definite improvement on what it was when we went away!

neilbond007

Sounds like you had an adventure Jackie! There are worse places to be stuck. Although when I was in LA the weather was pretty bad. I just went to Cancun, it was pretty bad, I'm now back in Cincy, it's pretty bad. There's a common factor here somewhere...

$1.5242

whatusername

Trading 1.51532

inspector_monkfish

12:15 05May10 POLL-POUND SEEN $1.51 IN 3 MTHS, $1.52 IN 6 MTHS, $1.53 IN 12 MTHS (PVS $1.51, $1.53, $1.55)

12:15 05May10 POLL-ECONOMISTS SEE 1-IN-5 CHANCE OF UK LOSING "AAA" CREDIT RATING SOMETIME AFTER ELECTION

12:15 05May10 POLL-UK hung parliament risk looms large over sterling

* Hung parliament risk dampens sterling sentiment vs dollar
* Euro seen weaker against sterling in 12 months
* 1-in-5 chance of UK losing "AAA" credit rating after polls


LONDON, May 5 - The looming threat of a hung parliament resulting from Thursday's UK general election has compelled market strategists to again chop their outlook for the pound against the dollar, the latest Reuters poll showed.

With polling stations opening in a matter of hours and Britain's bookmakers still odds-on for no party winning a clear majority, forecasters scaled back their 6- and 12-month sterling/dollar predictions for the fifth month running.

They also saw a one-in-five chance that Britain would suffer a credit rating downgrade sometime after the election.

Cable <GBP=> is seen treading water near its current level of $1.51 for the next six months, according to median forecasts from 58 foreign exchange strategists, before strengthening slightly to $1.53.

This was weaker than the 12-month forecast of $1.55 from April's poll.
"We expect GBP to weaken until mid-year," said Kamal Sharma from JP Morgan.

"Sterling's strength over the past month has been driven by a sense of economic recovery which still looks premature for a country facing a post-election fiscal tightening."

All three of Britain's biggest political parties agree that steep cutbacks are needed to shrink Britain's vast budget deficit down to size, even if they differ over when they should take effect.

But a lack of detail about how they will manage this and the risk that a weak minority or coalition government will struggle to legislate budget cuts has given some cause to believe the UK will lose its "AAA" top-notch credit rating.

The 35 economists polled by Reuters who answered an extra question assigned a median 20 percent chance of this happening sometime after the election.

"A downgrade is improbable, but a decision to review the AAA rating carries as much as an 80 percent probability, which should drive GBP lower as the realities of fiscal discipline will hit the ruling party," said Ashraf Laidi from CMC Markets.

Ratings agency Moody's said last month that a hung parliament would not necessarily hurt Britain's credit rating given the political consensus over the need to cut the deficit of just under 12 percent of GDP for the 2009/10 financial year.

The final Reuters/Ipsos MORI published on Monday showed the opposition Conservatives gaining ground in key parliamentary seats and could gain a narrow but outright win on Thursday.
EURO DIPPING

The pound is likely to appreciate modestly against the euro <EURGBP=D4> over the next 12 months, according to the poll.

The UK economy exited recession in the last quarter of 2009 and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) said last month the British economy was expected to outperform many of its euro zone peers.

But Greece's debt crisis has been of particular detriment to the euro in the last five months, having exposed vulnerabilities in other overborrowed euro zone countries and even calling into question the viability of the European currency project itself.

The euro hit a 9-month low against sterling on Wednesday at 85.54 pence and median forecasts from the poll showed the euro weakening to 84.7 pence in 12 months' time.

Economists gave just a 10 percent median probability of sterling reaching parity with the euro within six months.

"GBP itself has a lot of bad news priced into it ... and the markets have perhaps yet to fully discount the risks of a prolonged slide in the EUR based on the fiscal challenges facing the euro zone in the next few years," said TD Securities' Shaun Osborne, the most accurate forecaster in 2009 Reuters polls.

An additional fillip to sterling could come from an interest rate hike from the Bank of England later this year that would narrow the interest rate differential with the European Central Bank and improve the pound's appeal against the euro.

Last week's Reuters BoE poll [BOE/INT] showed a slim majority of economists expecting a rate hike by the end of this year from their record low 0.5 percent.

Forecasters in the European Central Bank rate poll [ECB/INT] showed a much firmer expectation that it would wait until 2011 before raising interest rates from 1 percent.