Post: #26

(02-10-2015 04:29 AM)Steve9 Wrote:  

(02-09-2015 07:40 AM)Deluge Wrote:  I asked a similar question on another thread not long ago, but with a specific time frame in mind. What do you guys think?

(02-05-2015 06:37 AM)Deluge Wrote:  Tall order, but what do you guys think the short-term outlook for the Euro/Eurozone is? I'm heavily exposed to how the Euro moves against the Australian dollar in the near future, I'll need to convert a big stack of dollars before July and another sometime in August. If shit hits the fan (like I'm selfishly praying it will) I'm going to enjoy a big increase in my purchasing power. My thinking is things in Europe could either get worse or just stay the same, but it's certainly not getting any better in this timeframe. Thoughts?

No one can accurately predict what will happen to the EUR/AUD rate in the next few months. It may be wise to divide your total amount by 3, and convert 1/3 now, 1/3 in May, and the rest in July/August.

If you have access to a Euro bank account, make sure you use a good FX company, like CurrencyFair (https://www.currencyfair.com/), instead of just using your bank. You will save a ton on commissions and spread.

Thanks for the link, I've been looking for something like this.

Post: #27

The euro is absolutely getting hammered.

It is down to 1.0696 to the dollar today. It will reach parity very soon.

Post: #28

(12-07-2014 05:23 AM)Swooper Wrote:  However I've noticed that the currency is at a ridiculous lowpoint (1.22 EUR/1.0 USD). I've checked some history and it seems the euro was way higher just earlier this year. Is the euro really capable of going even lower? Should I just convert now or can I wait it out?

I think you see the answer now. 1.22 seems like a hell of a deal at this point.

Post: #29

The USD is on fire moreso than anything else. CAD was around par with the USD for a while. Now I get about 79 cents for a dollar. I'm kicking myself for only buying 60k in US stocks while we were par but as is life.

The USD being so hot isn't a good thing for the economy long run as it makes all your products and labour much more expensive. There will be some level reversal at some point like anything else.

Post: #30

The USD is going insane. Clearly there has to be a point that it pulls back some or at least consolidates for a while.

But it still has a long ways to go before it reaches the highs of 2001. If the Fed raises interest rates in June like many think will happen the USD will keep moving up.



This is a chart of the US Dollar Index.

Post: #31

Poor libertarians/gold bugs/conspiracy theorists, they have been consistently and horrendously wrong about the economy for 6 years straight and yet they still keep their "the fall is coming any minute now" mantra.

Buying Euro products and services just got a whole lot cheaper, I know where I'm going this Summer.

Post: #32

(12-07-2014 06:09 AM)Zelcorpion Wrote:  I would observe it around this period, if it breaks through 1,18 and especially 1,15, then you can sell.

XE cites 1.068 dollars to the Euro today, March 11 2015.

You obviously know a lot more than me about foreign exchange, but Germany, England, Italy, Japan, Russia, and Mexico have all at times bet against the USA over the centuries, and you know the story so far.

Not only did they lose their bets, but we were able to become or remain their pals and participate positively in their post-conflict recovery except to some degree Russia-- but they're always grouchy so we're not doing too bad.

Who would have thought Jesus's credo to "Love your enemies" would have such an effective business outcome. Truly a human relations genius.

Post: #33

(03-10-2015 09:34 PM)Teutatis Wrote:  Poor libertarians/gold bugs/conspiracy theorists, they have been consistently and horrendously wrong about the economy for 6 years straight and yet they still keep their "the fall is coming any minute now" mantra.

TL;DR: The WORLD isn't going to hell, you are. Get it while you can.

"Mantra"-- interesting that means a word with no inherent meaning, used to distract one from the world so one can reach inner, disconnected peace in meditation. Doomsaying does have a mantra-like effect-- the outside world is hopeless, so one can not feel worry from it.

I have noticed this "doom is right around the corner" alarmist stuff ever since I was an adolescent, at first in myself. It's an aspect of one part simple short-term reinforcement and two parts of adolescent thinking:

First you get short-term reinforcement because people listen to your alarmist shit. If you are skilled at it, you can make it convincing, and people do have a natural propensity to consider what is offered as "emergency warning" information. Nice if you're Jewish in Germany in 1933, but 98% of doomsaying is just wrong or is about something you can't affect.

Something changes and "it" never happens, or "it" happens but there was nothing you could have done about it-- like say for instance that epidemic everyone was scared about a couple months ago.. Ebola? Most people didn't have the resources to flee to a cabin in Montana to escape it even if it did happen.

The adolescent parts of doom-saying:
1) Thinking you are smarter than all the people trying to figure out the solution to the problem of "peak oil", the "unsustainable debt" , "the terrorist problem", "the cold war". "feminist decline".

The smartest people in the world don't sit around and let shit happen, they're hearing the alarmist stuff too, and they don't want their nice lives to get fucked up. So they're improving solar panels which I understand are far more efficient and rugged than even five years ago, and starting Tesla, which may be overbought but is making electric cars sexy. And, if you are amidst the smartest people in the world, sorry but probably you are too busy fixing or inventing shit and not posting on or reading RVF.

2) Not realizing the feelings of impending doom you notice are accurate perceptions of what's going to happen to YOU, not to the world. We project those feelings of insecurity out and decide what's really wrong is something out there.

We all disappear, completely and forever, and as Freud said the defense mechanisms serve the purpose of allowing you to function without become insane from this insoluble quandary. The specific mechanism used in the "World is going to hell" psychological defense is to project our own anxiety about our doom onto the world outside, with an implicit hope that there is a solution-- fix the budget, fight the SJWs, kill the ISIS morons--and those might be good worldly goals, but they don't change the inevitability of doom.

Once about 40 years ago I was talking doom to my father, the peg on which to hang your doom ideas then was the environment.
"Iron ore used to be 4X %," I mentioned to him, "Now it's only X%. We're going to run out of stuff to make steel out of"

He dismissed this, and told me people had been foretelling doom forever, and that someone always figures something out. Maybe not for YOU, yes YOU are doomed, but "everything is going to hell" is a shallow and adolescent type of thinking that's been around forever. In the year 1000 people made preparations for the end that seem laughable now. Living in 1000 probably sucked, no hot water,chicks over 17 probably had bad breath lolzlzl. (Shakespeare includes having sweet breath as an attribute of a desirable lover in his writing.)

WE are doomed, yes, WE disappear. Pump out babies and have an ice cream or something. Get a job at State and fix the Ukraine or ISIS. I think something like 1 out of 50 or 100 applicants get hired. Or relax poolside. The EARTH doesn't flame out for about half a trillion years I think, from the expanding Sun. I'm a nervous guy, but even I'm not going to worry about that.

Post: #34

For those of you who are FX experts, I have a question please.

There are counties in Europe not part of the Euro. Will they tend move like the Euro anyway, or the dynamics are so different you can't really use the Euro as a guide for of Europe. Each individual country's economy plays the biggest role in determining the exchange rate.

I was looking at the zloty and it looks like it is getting pounded also by the dollar.

Post: #35

(03-10-2015 10:06 PM)samsamsam Wrote:  For those of you who are FX experts, I have a question please.

There are counties in Europe not part of the Euro. Will they tend move like the Euro anyway, or the dynamics are so different you can't really use the Euro as a guide for of Europe. Each individual country's economy plays the biggest role in determining the exchange rate.

I was looking at the zloty and it looks like it is getting pounded also by the dollar.

Well - those countries which are within the Euro zone, but have not taken the Euro currency yet - they will behave similarly.

Switzerland and Norway are for example a different thing.

Especially if you look at SFr vs US$, then it becomes clear that the dollar is not up due to some inherent strength, but due to the Euro weakness and the EU starting qantitative easing in earnest. They even openly said that later on.

Also the SFR/US$ chart would look even worse if the Swiss hadn't already moved against it, since they are after all also an industrial exporting nation. Partly the powerful mid-level quasi interest free WIR financing can make it possible even for mid level 100-200 mio. $ companies to get funding that only huge corporations can get in the US. That is also a reason why the Swiss economy is so viable.

In any case I am no libertarian and their models also like those of neo-classical as well as socialist economists are wrong. I am more in line with Minsky and the interest-free crowd stressing the importance of usury, interest and thus debt. Also you have manufacturing capacity, exports, imports, unemployment, structural changes etc. to add to the equation.

In my opinion Asia is going to rise, the EU is going to stagnate and the US is going to tank sooner or later.

The current low oil prices will remain that way for a while to push through carbon taxes (http://govtslaves.info/oregon-teams-veri...-per-mile/ ) and to exert greater pressure on some geo-political targets. As soon as that is achieved oil prices will rise and the economies will tank.

The movie Looper has a good take-down. But alas it does not mean that you will need to become a prepper, buy gold-coins and guns to survive a food-shortage. It is just a transition of supremacy from the US to China just as 1900 transitioned from the UK to US. That shift has already happened and it will become more apparent in the future.

Again the movie Looper shows it all for the sheep to see while the media and politicians claim that it "just happened".

In any case - short term moves of currencies happen for a multitude of reasons - QE, oil price, war economy etc. The EU wants an EU wide finance ministry and that is the main reason for the Greek crisis, so the situation might get worse until the states cave in and give the EU what it really wants like people cave in to mobsters if they beat them up enough. When that happens, then everything will return to normal.

However in the meantime that may take a while and EUR/$ can even surpass parity as it did in 1998 - yes I remember those days - the virtual Euro back then was around 0,8 to the dollar - somehow I doubt it could reach those levels unless the EU decides to massacre Portugal or Spain next.

We will see - our perception just helps us to survive here and we have to find our own conclusions based on all the info we have at our disposal.

Post: #36

Euro is back up to 1.08, opinions on whether the bottom is in? I don't follow it, but I'm liking the idea of owning an apartment in italy, even if it means... gulp... WORK... wwwwwwww.

Post: #37

Here is my guess. Take this with a grain of salt. I could be way off.

I think it needs to consolidate after such a big move so fast. Probably going to start ranging in the 1.05 to 1.115 range for 2 to 6 months. Then it will continue down towards parity.

This could happen as soon as June if the Fed does actually raise interest rates then. I am guessing that they don't do it in June. Again just a guess.

I think we see the $ stronger than the € before the end of the year. I don't think this is going to be the long term trend where the $ stays stronger than the €. Maybe 1 or 2 years.

Predicting this kind of stuff is impossible as we don't know how world events play out. If Europe falls into deflation and the ECB starts pumping even more money into the system it is possible to see it go all the way down to 0.85. Seems plausible just not likely.


I don't think we see anything above 1.22 in the next year or two.

(03-27-2015 06:26 AM)iknowexactly Wrote:  Euro is back up to 1.08, opinions on whether the bottom is in? I don't follow it, but I'm liking the idea of owning an apartment in italy, even if it means... gulp... WORK... wwwwwwww.

Post: #38

(03-27-2015 06:26 AM)iknowexactly Wrote:  Euro is back up to 1.08, opinions on whether the bottom is in? I don't follow it, but I'm liking the idea of owning an apartment in italy, even if it means... gulp... WORK... wwwwwwww.

Unless you get someone here from working high-up in the real power structure, you won't be able to predict anything with moderate certainty.

The best one can do is get probabilities - based on the trading style and timing used this generates money. Yes - the dollar seems to get a rebound from 1,08 - maybe a sideway move. But the thing is this - the steep downtrend is still valid and there is a saying - never catch a falling knife. The prevalent trend is still negative - even a rebound to 1,20 or over time to 1,25 WOULD ONly support the negative trend.

Post: #39

I interact with the FX markets for work. Right now, traders are heavily net short EUR. The only comparably crowded trade is long USD. Even if they're right about the longer trend, it's dangerous to pile in because crowded trades are juicy opportunities to fuck with in the short term.

I'd avoid speculation on either currency and focus on risk mitigation. If you're paid in USD and plan to spend/live in EUR, make regular conversions. If EURUSD appreciates, then you're happy that you made the conversion when you did. If it falls further, your cash flow gains in value.