Euro (€) Currency Thread

antenna

RachelW1987 wrote: »

I want to take about £2500 on holiday, what do you suggest? Nationwide account or travellers cheques/cash?

Cash is king,Nationwide is second best,Travellers Cheques if you cant be trusted with cash,So take cash and Nationwide card,change your cash to euros once abroad,but read my earlier post on Bureau De Change cons

inspector_monkfish

Getting a bit smelly in Deutschland......


07:38 25Feb09-Export plunge leads German Q4 GDP contraction

BERLIN, Feb 25 - Foreign trade dragged down German gross domestic product (GDP) in the final three months of 2008, reducing Europe's largest economy to its worst quarter since reunification in 1990, official data confirmed on Wednesday.
The Federal Statistics Office said the economy contracted by 2.1 percent in the final quarter of last year, in line with a preliminary estimate published earlier in February.

The contraction was led by foreign trade, which shaved 2.0 percentage points from the quarterly growth total, the Office said. Exports fell by 7.3 percent on the quarter, and imports declined by 3.6 percent.
The negative GDP contribution from foreign trade highlighted the impact the global downturn is having on Germany, which as the world's biggest exporter of goods had enjoyed booming foreign demand until earlier last year.
"Although structurally healthy, the German economy is suffering more than almost anyone else from freezing global trade," said Carsten Brzeski, economist at ING Financial Markets. "A recovery in the truest sense of the word will only materialise in 2010."

The auto sector, which accounted for the biggest chunk of German exports in 2007, is feeling the brunt of the downturn.
Assembly lines at some Volkswagen <VOWG.DE> plants in Germany fell silent on Monday as Europe's biggest carmaker switched to a short working week for the first time in 26 years.
Scaled-back production at six VW brand plants in western Germany and one plant in eastern Germany affected 61,000 workers as VW aimed to keep inventories of unsold cars from piling up.

On an annual basis, GDP shrank by a workday adjusted 1.7 percent in the fourth quarter.
Inventories added 0.5 percentage points to the quarterly GDP growth total, but an unwinding of stocks is likely to hit the first quarter 2009 result, economists said. Gross capital investment subtracted 0.5 percentage points in the fourth quarter.

The October-December period was the third quarter in a row in which the economy shrank. Government sources have already said further contraction is likely in the first quarter.
The government expects the economy to contract by 2.25 percent this year. Since World War Two, Germany's economy has never contracted by more than one percent in a single year.

inspector_monkfish

UK GDP figures due to be released at 9.30am

EUR/GBP currently trading at 1.1320

inspector_monkfish

pre-gdp data, eur/gbp still trading at 1.1320

inspector_monkfish

came in better than expected, slightly

RachelW1987

antenna wrote: »

Cash is king,Nationwide is second best,Travellers Cheques if you cant be trusted with cash,So take cash and Nationwide card,change your cash to euros once abroad,but read my earlier post on Bureau De Change cons

Thanks for the advice. I deffinatly need some sort of Travellers Cheques just incase and so I can keep on top of my budget

inspector_monkfish

09:30 25Feb09 4Q GDP -1.5% QQ, UNCHANGED FROM FIRST EST
09:30 25Feb09 4Q GDP REVISED TO -1.9% YY; LAST EST -1.8% YY
09:30 25Feb09 4Q GDP FORECAST AT -1.6% QQ; -1.9% YY
09:30 25Feb09 3Q GDP REVISED TO -0.7% QQ FROM -0.6% QQ
09:30 25Feb09 3Q GDP REVISED TO +0.2% YY FROM +0.3% YY
09:30 25Feb09 4Q GDP YY DROP LARGEST SINCE 2Q 1991
09:30 25Feb09 4Q GDP HOUSEHOLD SPENDING QQ DECLINE LARGEST SINCE 2Q 1991
09:30 25Feb09 UK EMPLOYEE COMPENSATION GROWTH LOWEST SINCE 2Q 1994; +0.1%QQ
09:30 25Feb09 UK INVENTORIES QQ DROP LARGEST SINCE 4Q 1990
09:46 25Feb09 UK Q4 Household Spending Dives 0.7% But GDP Unch




LONDON--Spending by the U.K. consumer in the last three months of 2008 fell at its fastest pace since 1991, the Office for National Statistics said Wednesday, while it left the U.K. economy's fourth-quarter contraction unchanged.

In the first revision of gross domestic product data, the ONS said the
economy contracted 1.5% in the fourth quarter from the third quarter. However, the ONS said the economy fell 1.9% from the year earlier period, compared with the 1.8% originally reported.

Economists had expected a quarterly decline of 1.6% and an annual contraction of 1.9%.

GDP was dragged down in part by household expenditure, which fell 0.7% in the fourth quarter after two straight quarterly 0.2% declines.

The ONS also said compensation of employees rose 0.1%, less than the 0.4% increase in the previous quarter and the smallest rise since 1994 - clear evidence that the recession is curtailing wage growth.

The ONS also said there was a big draw down in inventories in the fourth
quarter, with manufacturing and retail firms in particular running down stocks. Inventories fell GBP2.6 billion in the quarter, the largest since 1990.

The ONS also revised previous GDP data. It reported the economy contracted 0.7% in the third quarter from a 0.6% quarterly contraction first reported. The economy grew 0.2% on the year.

inspector_monkfish

09:56 25Feb09-EUR ECON: Inventories and GDP

[09:56 EUR ECON: Inventories and GDP] London Feb 25
German Q4 GDP data showed a positive 0.5pp contribution from inventories while the UK Q$ GDP data this morning showed a negative 1.3pp contribution from inventories. For Germany the positive contribution from inventories bodes ill for growth going forward while for the UK the negative contribution should help limit the downside. What is clear from both sets of data is that government spending will play an increasingly important role in supporting GDP growth moving forward given the negative fundamental backdrop for consumption, investment and exports.

ppxrf

Should I buy euros for summer travel now and get 1.165? Noted that 2 online companies that offer such deals share an office in Hayle, Cornwall and one in Penzance. Does Cornwall have different tax rules? Also, I must pay by cheque or online debit for delivery (say) in July. What protection do I have if these companies diasppear for whatever reason with my money?
ppxrf

inspector_monkfish

11:00 25Feb09 BOE SENTANCE: UK RETAIL SALES PLAYING A "STABILIZING ROLE"
11:00 25Feb09 BOE SENTANCE: UK RETAIL SALES MORE POSITIVE THAN EXPECTED
11:00 25Feb09 BOE SENTANCE: WEAKER GBP MAY BE HAVING LARGER IMPACT ON CPI
11:00 25Feb09 INTERVIEW:BOE Sentance:UK Retail Sales Play Stabilizing Role



LONDON --Consumer spending may be supporting demand to a larger
than expected degree in the U.K., while sterling's weakness may be having a
greater inflationary impact than anticipated, Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee member Andrew Sentance said.

The U.K. economy is in recession, having shrunk by 1.5% in the fourth quarter of last year, and 0.7% in the third. The nine-member MPC expects the contraction to continue this year, with the economy at its weakest around midyear and recovering thereafter.

However, retail sales in recent months have been significantly stronger than economists had expected. A survey by the Confederation of British Industry released Tuesday recorded an improvement in sales volumes at U.K. retailers, with the sales balance rising to -25 in February from -47 in January. "In general, consumer spending has played a stabilizing role in U.K. recessions," Sentance said in an interview with Dow Jones Newswires conducted Tuesday. "There are quite a few good reasons why we might expect that to be the case in the current environment."

Those reasons include the boost to real incomes from the fall in energy and other commodity prices, the impact of a cut in sales tax, and the reduction in mortgage interest payments as a result of the MPC's decision to slash its key interest rate by four percentage points since early October.

"There's been a slightly more positive tone than you might have expected looking at just crude measures of consumer confidence," Sentance said.
Sentance is one of the four MPC members who don't work for the BOE on a full-time basis. Before becoming a rate setter in October 2006, Sentance was chief economist for British Airways, and has also been head of economic policy at the Confederation of British Industry, the U.K.'s leading business lobby group.

Just as retail sales have been stronger than expected, the inflation rate has fallen more slowly than many had forecast.
Consumer price inflation eased only slightly to 3.0% in January, marking the third consecutive month that the outcome had been higher than economists expected, having peaked at 5.2% in September.
That compares with a significantly more rapid slowdown in price growth in
the 16 countries that share the euro, where the inflation rate fell to 1.1% in January from a peak of 4.0% in July.

Sentance saidthe slower fall in inflation may be because sterling's
depreciation is pushing up import prices, and those price increases are being passed on to consumers.
"There's some tentative evidence that we may be getting a bit more pass
through from the decline in sterling into inflation," Sentance said. The pound dropped around 26% against the dollar during 2008.

But Sentance said sterling's depreciation should help boost growth.
Initially, it should soften the blow of the global economic downturn by
allowing exporters, as well as suppliers to the domestic market, to keep up their margins, generating profits. Further out, when the world economy does turn around there should be a much more powerful boost to the manufacturing sector, he said.
"Obviously that's a bit further down the track, but it may be the confidence and the knowledge of that may also help companies to preserve capacity and to maintain investment in the current climate," Sentance said.

The BOE has long said it wants to see the U.K. economy rebalancing, to rely more on exports and less on domestic consumer demand. But in slashing its interest rate and mulling an increase in the money supply to stimulate domestic demand, the BOE may be standing in the way of that rebalancing.

But Sentance said that recessions were not always good times to resolve imbalances. "I think with these big imbalances we're talking about in the global economy, we have to recognize that adjustments will need to take place, not just in the current year or two, but over a longer period while the global economy is recovering," Sentance said.