Sterling ... heading towards Euro parity

Am I the only one who’s getting serious jitters about my meagre remaining savings in £sterling? Johnson + Brexit + Johnson’s handling of coronavirus are far from reassuring. I’ve looked on all the forex forums (incomprehensible), and I’ve asked my cat (ditto). So time for a SF poll. Would you change the last of your pounds over now, or hope for a better rate down the line, and if so, on what grounds?

Revolut currently offering 1.1060.
Some way to go to declare parity IMHO.

True, Graham. “Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated,” as Mark Twain said. Still…

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The Uk lowered bank rates from .75 to .25 so in effect lowering the value of the pound to raise growth.
The EU doesn’t have this option as it’s already on negative rates, and can only pump money into the system which hasn’t been working for the last few years but they have no other means to raise growth. That’s why the Euro doesn’t work for all countries

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Nobody can advise on a specific set of circumstances, because it is impossible to know what will happen in the future.
But two general rules are worth bearing in mind -

  1. Putting all your eggs in one basket is exciting but risky.
  2. If you buy at the top of the market and sell at the bottom you will be a loser.
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Hmm, I’m not sure about exciting, but I’ll go with risky!
The problem is knowing whether we are at the top of the market. I have well meaning friends telling me there’s no risk with the euro, but that’s clearly nonsense. Other people saying the £ is undervalued, I suppose for the reasons @barrie_wildsmith set out.

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That is indeed the problem. The professionals put a lot of effort into research, but still get it wrong quite often. So they use software that automatically triggers trades when warning signs are detected. By the time the average punter notices what is going on it will be too late.
Just another example of the way the richer you are, the easier it is to make more. . . . . .

£1 = 1.08€ today, pretty close - if the airport bureau de change had any customers they would certainly be offering less than 1€ per £

And €1.053 on Currencies Direct at 1435 hr today.

Yikes.

Get an account with Revolut @Peter_Goble
1.0836 at 15:30

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As an old hedge fund guy… I would tell you I have grave doubts about the future of sterling. But get advice. To me, the situation going forward looks dire–particularly if they are not aggressive about securing trade deals with the EU. I am particularly concerned about financial flows–to EM–the reason sterling is strong–money flows to London to buy stocks–of global commonwealth firms. If that dries up… and it looks grim… the pound is not worth the paper it is printed on.

1.04944 with the company I use. GC Partners. I must check ou this Revoluting mob.

But, on the :slightly_smiling_face: side, I have just had a 47€ p.m. ‘rise’ in so far as the final installment for repairs to my building’s lift has just been taken.

But generally speaking, the state of UK in most depts and the way GBP is demonstrating that the Gnomes of Zurich and elsewhere don’t have any faith in Bojo and Co… Grim, grimmer, grimmest.

This is to do with currency speculators shorting the £ to try and make big bucks.
Disgraceful people.
I think it will recover but not immediately.

… and the BoE is going to print even more

Thanks, very interesting. Gulp.
I almost wrote Tanks, which is very apt. EM is emerging markets?

Can hardly blame them. Why Gnomes?

1.0857 just now at 16:02 with Revolut

You may be lucky enough to be too young to remember that the nickname for the world of hidden financiers who were deemed responsible for Britain’s economic woes, back in the 70’s, was, according to whichever satirical comedy programme, or maybe Private Eye, The Gnomes of Zurich.

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Trying to sign up. I can see how it’s supposed to work but at the mo it just aint. Coming up for 10 minutes ‘waiting for an agent’ on chat help. 10 mins now!

Return to ‘Go’

Took 3 tries to recognise the sign-up access code. Refuses to recognise my bank account post code. Agent ‘working from home’? Agent not working at all …

But I will keep trying. Has recognised my old, redundant UK postcode!

The trick now is whether the system will accept the photo of my p/port. The new p/port main page is so replete with anti-forgery that photos of it produce barely readble results over the photo, which has a hologram over the top of it and at bottom-left a frame of the Union’s 4 national plants plus curliques, all in highly reflective silver. And over the whole page, plastic lamination. A photographer’s nightmare - and I’m a photographer!

We’ll see if they buy it