Charles's Thoughts: Sterling is moving in a fairly narrow range against a wide range of currencies. It is the speed of movement between the extremes of this narrow range which makes it difficult to assess when best to do a transaction. The key UK releases this week were firstly the Bank of England minutes and secondly the level of government borrowing for October. The BoE minutes identified that 7 of the 9 members of the BoE committee voted for an increase in the quantitative easing programme by £25bn to £200bn. The expectation now is that any further possible increase will probably have to wait until February 2010. The other point discussed by the BoE was reducing the rate at which the BoE paid interest on funds deposited with it but they decided against this. The market views is that this is quantitative easing by the back door so became slightly disconcerted which is always sterling negative. The level of government borrowings increase in October exceeded £ 11bn. Just shows the extent of the problems facing the government. Although there was a lack of positive news this week sterling didn’t crumple.
There was no unexpected economic news from the US and for the 101st time the Federal Reserve stated that US interest rates were going to be held at current low levels for the foreseeable future. What was unusual though was the Chairman of the Federal Reserves comment that he favoured a strong US$. This was unusual as he very rarely comments on the US$ as this is the remit of the US Treasury. Therefore the market took note and we saw the US$ benefit during the course of the week.
The euro continues to be strong against most currencies. The European Central Bank sees the euro zone economy to be on the up and is expected to increase its growth forecasts for the euro zone for 2010 to be released in December. But they know they have to be ever vigilant. Inflation seems to be increasing but will take quite a while to reach the targeted level of 2%.
There was a pull back in the commodity backed currencies. The New Zealand government highlighted the problems of having too strong a currency and how this was affecting negatively their recovery from the world wide recession. This fed through to the other commodity backed and/or high yield currencies.
Why is Currency Management So Important? Using a bank could cost you £3-4,000 per £100,000 transferred. Buying at the “wrong” time could cost you many £’000’s more as rates can move as much as 3% in a very short period of time. Then add in transfer costs that the banks charge for sending and receiving funds and you could be looking at additional costs of £10,000 per £100,000 transferred. By developing a currency strategy and by working with a specialist currency broker these losses could be minimised if not eliminated.
Smart Client Testimonial: "Thank you for making our transactions go so smoothly. As promised, our account was opened within hours. Your traders were pleasant and efficient, and each transaction was very much at the exchange rate I expected...ie not a million miles away from the inter-bank rates and certainly much better than my high street bank could quote. All in all, an easy experience and we will have absolutely no hesitation in recommending your services to any of our friends buying property abroad.” Ian Pritchard If you haven't opened a Smart account yet, call me on freephone 0808 163 0102 (+44 0207 898 0541) or fill out our online Account Form at: http://www.SmartCurrencyExchange.com/application.htm
How much will a Property Cost? To estimate the cost of a property simply DIVIDE the price of the property by the appropriate rate noted above. But note this is based on the inter bank rate so the actual cost will be slightly more.
No comments:
Post a Comment