What currency do you feel is the best currency to hold for the next year?

[MichaelCorfman]

Lately, I've been paying a lot more attention to the relative value of different currencies. Partly that is due to the fact that in the online gaming world, as an affiliate, earnings can be in a variety of currencies, and ultimately those currencies have to be exchanged to the actual currencies needed to run the business.

Right now, according to OANDA, the site I use to convert currencies and to track currency values, the five most favorite currency exchange rates to track are the following:

1. Euro
2. U.S. Dollar
3. British Pound
4. Canadian Dollar
5. Australian Dollar

For any of them, and for virtually every other currency, you can see graphs of historical exchange rates simply by entering the currency you have, the currencies you want (up to five of them), and a time range (they have data going back as far as January 1, 1990 for some currencies), and you will be presented with a chart showing currency exchange rate fluctuations over time.

In addition to currencies circulated by nations, they also support bitcoins, and gold, silver, palladium, and platinum.

You can construct your own charts using the following web page:

www.oanda.com/currency/historical-rates/

For this week's poll, if you had extra funds you wanted to hold in an account for a year, and wanted to look at it as an opportunity to benefit from changes in exchange rates over the coming year, which currency would you choose? Be sure to share your reasons in a post.

Michael

[TheGooner]

The New Zealand dollar has appreciated significantly against most of the major currencies over the last 18 months.

The word is that it will continue this year with diary commodities (milk, milk powder, butter) in hot demand throughout Asia, South America and Europe.

Dairy farming is NZ's major export and this will boost the economy significantly and expectations are that the local reserve bank will raise the official cash rate two or three times throughout the year ... which usually signals a boost in the currency value as international investors cash the higher interest rates.

A small worry for the 12 month time frame is a general election in November, as there might be a change of government, although it's not perceived as a major worries as the two main parties are quite centre.

For me the NZD is my home currency - so it's an easy call to bring the cash back now - but it is a volatile currency highly traded and so can raise or drop 1% in a 24 hour period. So not for the faint hearted who are just speculating and don't actually want to spend NZD.

Right now 1 NZD buys 0.8319 USD, 0.5085 GBP, 0.6118 EUR, 0.9113 CAD and 0.9436 AUD.
I'll post back in six months and 12 months and see where it is.


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For the five currencies you mention, the outlooks are all fairly mediocre, and they will tread water during 2014.
The GBP would probably be the best.
The USD needs the FED to ACTUALLY stop quantitative easing - not just talk about it.

Gold will probably appreciate 5-10% ($60 to $120) during 2014 when measured against the USD.

============

Disclaimer :
I've being doing this for as long as I've been affiliating (1999) as EVERYTHING we earn is foreign currency to a Kiwi, so I have some experience of past trends and generally do quite well at timing when to convert currencies ...

BUT .. I cannot see the future and all currency trading is a risk.

[universal4]

Thanks Gooner, like always I read every word you posted with GREAT interest, but this statement really disappointed me imensely.

BUT .. I cannot see the future

Dang-it was hoping to capture a little bit of that NZ inside information.....or did you just say that to keep it all to yourself.....lol

Rick
Universal4

[louie.wilson]

What do you think about HK or SGP$?
Not much used for sure, but from what i heard, these are for sure pretty sure not to devalue anytime soon.
Vs EURO or DOLLAR still very versatile...

[Planet Mark]

I get paid in USD, save in GBP and spend in either EUR and HUF (Hungarian Forints)... currencies just give me a damn headache.

Relatively speaking my view is that USD will continue to be the 'least bad option' globally for a few years yet.

[Roulette Zeitung]

1. Euro
2. U.S. Dollar.

U.S. Dollar?

---

Federal Reserve Statistical Release
Money Stock Measures
Release Date: November 10, 2005, revised March 9, 2006

Discontinuance of M3

On March 23, 2006, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System will cease publication of the M3 monetary aggregate. The Board will also cease publishing the following components: large-denomination time deposits, repurchase agreements (RPs), and Eurodollars. The Board will continue to publish institutional money market mutual funds as a memorandum item in this release.

Measures of large-denomination time deposits will continue to be published by the Board in the Flow of Funds Accounts (Z.1 release) on a quarterly basis and in the H.8 release on a weekly basis (for commercial banks).

M3 does not appear to convey any additional information about economic activity that is not already embodied in M2 and has not played a role in the monetary policy process for many years. Consequently, the Board judged that the costs of collecting the underlying data and publishing M3 outweigh the benefits.

Source: http://www.federalreserve.gov/Releases/h6/discm3.htm

---
With a handful of words: Since November 10th, 2005 it's a secret how many Dollars are in circulation.

Question of this thread: What currency do you feel...........next year?

Answer: Euro, because this currency and the 300.000.000 + people living with it, the most sucessfully in "Old Europe", don't need any rating agencies to eliminate competitors.

Leopold

[thebookiesoffers]

What do you think about HK or SGP$?
Not much used for sure, but from what i heard, these are for sure pretty sure not to devalue anytime soon.
Vs EURO or DOLLAR still very versatile...

what i learned the other week is you get a far better rate out in Singapore than you do here back in England, around 0.2 SGD more to the £ out there

Euro is on it's arse still as well

[Voids]

Voted for GBP although you actually need to have some money for this to matter. So I'm fine for now.

[Christiaan]

I think the Euro will raise in value the next years. There were a few very bad years for euro with the crisis. But as the economy is getting better I guess the euro will also get better.

[thebookiesoffers]

I think the Euro will raise in value the next years. There were a few very bad years for euro with the crisis. But as the economy is getting better I guess the euro will also get better.

trouble is mate there are too many bad economies dragging it down. To me it was always going to be a flawed currency and I can only ever see it going one way im afraid

[Christiaan]

trouble is mate there are too many bad economies dragging it down. To me it was always going to be a flawed currency and I can only ever see it going one way im afraid

Yeah you have a good point there. A few months ago there was a program on tv, they said that in the beginning there was a plan to create a currency for the northern European countries: Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Germany and Scandinavian countries.
I think that would have worked out much better then now with all the eastern European and southern European countries.

[thebookiesoffers]

Yeah you have a good point there. A few months ago there was a program on tv, they said that in the beginning there was a plan to create a currency for the northern European countries: Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Germany and Scandinavian countries.
I think that would have worked out much better then now with all the eastern European and southern European countries.

Exactly, it is not disrespectful to say that economies over Europe are/were all different. whacking them all together just doesn't work. Just look at the cost of living the Spanish have had to contend with because of it all.

[MrDeposit]

I'm having a little fun holding bitcoins/day trading it a little.

[DanHorvat]

whacking them all together just doesn't work.

Yet Euro is stronger than German mark, its predecessor, ever was. And EU has GDP od 16.214 trillion while USA has 16.724 trillion and China 13.374 trillion. But it doesn't work, you say.

It takes time, but Euro will succeed in bringing the different economies closer together, it already has the benefit of a giant uniform market. Saying Euro will fail because Greece and Spain are in trouble is very short-sighted.

If you'd apply the same logic you'd probably say "whacking them all together just doesn't work" in case of Scotland, N.Ireland and Wales as well, and they shouldn't be using GBP. Correct?

in the beginning there was a plan to create a currency for the northern European countries: Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Germany and Scandinavian countries.
I think that would have worked out much better then now with all the eastern European and southern European countries.

"Because of its rapid growth, Estonia has often been described as a Baltic Tiger."
"Estonia had the lowest ratio of government debt to GDP among EU countries at 6.7% at the end of 2010." (Belgian debt was 96.2% at the time)
"In 2007, 2008 and 2010, Slovakia was the fastest growing economy in the European Union. In 2011 (with the GDP growth of 3.3%), Slovakia was the 2nd fastest growing Eurozone member (after Estonia)." (Belgian GDP growth was -0.2% in 2012.)

Slovenia, Latvia and Cyprus also seem to be doing fine. I doubt that they're reducing the strength of Euro. The six eastern and southern European countries you left out account for 538 billion $ GDP combined, which is more than Belgium as one of founders does. And probably more worth than Belgium as not all eggs are in the same basket in a service-oriented economy. One egg (Greece) is currently broken but it will be a powerhouse once the reforms are complete. Spain is contributing a great deal to Euro despite internal problems, its economy is doing just fine.

For one, you as a Belgian, with an economy heavily depending on surrounding economies, should understand the importance of countries such as Slovakia having the same currency as you and not having import/export taxes.

[thebookiesoffers]

If you'd apply the same logic you'd probably say "whacking them all together just doesn't work" in case of Scotland, N.Ireland and Wales as well, and they shouldn't be using GBP. Correct?

Not really, the countries in the UK have pretty much the same economic levels. Different parts bring different benefits and costs. But nothing like dragging whole countries out the crap. Look at Ireland, Spain, Italy, Portugal and Greece, completely in the crap, Greece will be in it for years. No way you can align their economies with the like of Germany and not get any problems. For example, look at the huge black hole that Greece got themselves in due to them not declaring any tax and retiring in the 50's. You can't have that sort of economy and expect no problems for the currency.

I fear even more seeing that all future countries joining the EU are supposed to be obliged to join the EU, will just ramp up inflation in the poorer countries, and that certainly is not good for them

I for one am pleased that while we have this government we'll have nothing to do with the Euro

[hazo]

I get paid in USD but will be holding in HKD - there's some good info out there about why this is a solid solution.

So many theories though, this is my strategy moving forward for the medium term.

[thebookiesoffers]

So many theories though

That is basically it, we can all have our own thoughts and ideas and opinions and to be honest, unless someone says something really stupid everyone has valid points. End of the day the so called experts can't even get it right or we wouldn't keep having financial meltdowns and economic crashes

[Christiaan]

"Because of its rapid growth, Estonia has often been described as a Baltic Tiger."
"Estonia had the lowest ratio of government debt to GDP among EU countries at 6.7% at the end of 2010." (Belgian debt was 96.2% at the time)
"In 2007, 2008 and 2010, Slovakia was the fastest growing economy in the European Union. In 2011 (with the GDP growth of 3.3%), Slovakia was the 2nd fastest growing Eurozone member (after Estonia)." (Belgian GDP growth was -0.2% in 2012.)

Belgium comes from a very good economy. Due to the crisis and the heavy competition from countries with low cost employees our economy had a fall back. But in 2013 we grow again. I'm not sure what the percentage was.
Countries like Slovakia come from a bad economy and for them it is easier to grow.

For your countries that had a bad economy the euro is good. For countries with a good economy I think it was not such a good idea with the euro.

A country like Greece costed the other countries a lot of money. We all had to pay to prevent Greece from getting bankrupt.

[edgarf76]

There is an excellent ETF for Gold (Symbol - GLD). It is the safest play IMO.

[TheGooner]

I get paid in USD but will be holding in HKD - there's some good info out there about why this is a solid solution..

Could you explain it to me Hazo?

The HKD is pegged to the USD at a rate of 7.75 to 7.85 ... so it should rise or fall in exactly the same manner as the USD unless the Hong Kong Government decides to break the peg. But that seems extremely unlikely in the foreseeable future.

I'm not aware of a good reason to go to the expense of a currency conversion cost to hold HKD over the next 12 month period - and unless you actually want to buy something in Hong Kong you'll have the same expense coming back to another currency.