pound on the slide

[Santiago]

Until the Greek situation appears to be under control, the Euro will remain weak. But as everybody in the financial world knows about the Greek problem, I imagine the Euro is trading at a rate that already takes all that fear and uncertainty into account.

That's pretty much as far as I would go with predictions.

[Smiley G]

Commercial rate down to 1.3342 this morning.

[Smiley G]

Now down to 1.3071 this afternoon, close to a 52 week low of 1.2920

[SteveB]

Yes, for the last few weeks I've been playing a kind of "currency roulette" trying to pick the right time to make forward contracts with a currency dealer for my house purchase - something other cash buyers will probably be familiar with. For people who aren't, the idea is that you fix your exchange rate at a particular time, rather than having to use the rate that is operating at the time you hand over the money. This involves having to guess whether the rate will get better or worse over the period in question, which is practically impossible to predict, even for the experts. Considering the amount of money involved in a house purchase, fluctuations in exchange rates can of course make a lot of difference to the cost of the house.

In the end, by breaking the sum up into smaller chunks and fixing the rate at different times - the last chunk today in the middle of the latest slide - I managed to get an overall average rate of about 1.32, considerably worse than it was a month or so ago, but the way things are going perhaps quite a lot better than it will be by the time the purchase goes throug, around the end of next month. My only consolation is that the difference more or less equates to the reduction in price I managed to negotiate with the vendor.

Of course, the exchange rate might recover in the next few weeks, but such is the nature of gambling!

[Expatcounsellor]

I opened a account in Ireland with my Irish hubby when we were over in Ireland last year. You don't need to be buying a house to use a forward contract. I used moneycorp nn arranged a standing order to send money from my UK account by standing order every month to Irish account via a forward contract for a year at 1.35. Then when the rate improved a bit before Xmas I took another one out for six months at 1.38. Delighted I did now....only regret I didn't say 12 months for the second one too. It's great as I now have money in a euro account in Ireland n a debit card I can use anywhere in Europe . idewl for seeing irish family but also great for france n can use in UK if I needed to in emergency....

[Smiley G]

Down to under 1,29€ to the £

[Smiley G]

Down to under 1,24€ to the £Pound

[Smiley G]

Now over 1.29, due to anticipated "Remain" win on June 23rd.

[montgolfiere]

lets hope so.....it would be a disaster otherwise.

[Smiley G]

Currency traders have indicated that even a very narrow "Remain" win will cause hiccups in the markets if a divisive outcome emerges on Friday. I suppose the same would happen if it was a narrow "Leave" win.
One thing is certain, Britain will change on Friday.

[Smiley G]

Currency traders have indicated that even a very narrow "Remain" win will cause hiccups in the markets if a divisive outcome emerges on Friday. I suppose the same would happen if it was a narrow "Leave" win.
One thing is certain, Britain will change on Friday.

Well I DID say "Britain will change on Friday" and the £1 has dropped to a current level of £1 = 1.22630€.
If more voters had bothered to vote the outcome may have been very different. 72.2% of the electorate, for such a vital decision, was lower than the 82-83% that most forecasters were predicting.

[lp353927]

I am interested in this issue - property prices in London after Brexit. KPMG predicted that prices would drop by 5% nationally. But the contrary happened. The weak pound attracted foreign investors and now we enjoy even higher prices.
It seems like the interest rate drop will do the same - https://tranio.com/united-kingdom/analy ... rket_5177/