More exchange rate notes...

Simon & Nicky

Bronze
Feb 3, 2004
655
14
0
www.simon-hall.co.uk
As most people know, I check the exchange rates every morning on Bloomberg simply out of curiosity. Last Friday there was a "blip" in sterling (and dollar obviously) when it went from 55 to 60 and then back again in the space of a day. This is obviously a massive swing in the world of currency exchange. So I was surprised to see that rates for sterling for today (Friday) were again at 60 this morning. What's more they are now back down to 55 again. Damn - I didn't get to the cash machine fast enough. To keep this in simple terms for us Brits that's 20 quid in two hundred; enough for a fine night out FOC.

What keeps me awake at night is the fact that some people are trying to run a business in these circumstances. How can you buy in raw materials and calculate a sale price / profit with ridiculous fluctuations like this? I'd have given up long ago, and I just can't see anyone staying afloat right now without a generous dollop of good fortune and if you're going to trust to luck you might as well go down to the casino.


- Just a thought!

Rocky did you get my email?

Simon
 

Barnabe

Member
Dec 20, 2002
507
0
16
Simon & Nicky said:
As most people know, I check the exchange rates every morning on Bloomberg simply out of curiosity. Last Friday there was a "blip" in sterling (and dollar obviously) when it went from 55 to 60 and then back again in the space of a day. This is obviously a massive swing in the world of currency exchange. So I was surprised to see that rates for sterling for today (Friday) were again at 60 this morning. What's more they are now back down to 55 again. Damn - I didn't get to the cash machine fast enough. To keep this in simple terms for us Brits that's 20 quid in two hundred; enough for a fine night out FOC.

Simon

Hi,

I know Bloomberg is a highly reputable company but I think there is a bug in the data you mention. As you say such variations are "massive" and more than noticeable.

Here in the moneychanging business (paper money) most people use www.oanda.com or www.xe.com. I permanently have xe.com, which is a reuters like service, you will have all major rates actualized every minute, for free, from Monday morning to friday afternoon. From late friday afternoon data becomes a bit unreliable, in case there is a move.

We saw a few days ago GDP weakening strongly against euro, almost 1% drop, but it recovered the day after. I checked history of USD/GDP over 10 days on oanda and could not find the variation you mention.

Barnab?