withdraw savings to buy foreign cash?

C

CillianB

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Is there anything to be said for taking some of my bank savings and purchasing some "safe" foreign currency in the form of cold cash and storing it away safely in the event of the collapse of the Euro or banks finally going to the wall?

What would finish near the top in terms of an international league of safe currencies?
Where is the cheapest place to buy paper currencies?
 
CillianB said:
Where is the cheapest place to buy paper currencies?
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You want to withdraw your € savings and buy actual notes? Doesn't sound like the safest thing to do in my opinion.

What about opening a non € denominated a/c somewhere - e.g. GBP£, US$, some European non € zone currency?
 
What you are asking is pure speculation. You might as well ask DmcW as they always seem to be right or ask who's gonna win next years Grand National. Nobody can be sure what will happen, if we did we'd all be rich. That's why all the people who predicted that property would crash went out and bought all sorts in pre 2000 and sold in 2006 making a fortune in the process.
 
If you go out and buy actual cash, there will be currency and transaction fees. you run the risk of theft regardless of where you store and the risk of being reported for money laundering when you go to change it back. Also, your store of cash is loosing value from day 1 as it is not receiving interest.
 
The comparison to a horse race is hardly credible.
However being an avid viewer of Vincent Browne Tonight, I have a tendency to veer too close to an apocalyptic view of our future
 
CillianB said:
The comparison to a horse race is hardly credible.
However being an avid viewer of Vincent Browne Tonight, I have a tendency to veer too close to an apocalyptic view of our future
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It is very credible! For about 18 months or so, people were happily buying the Swiss Franc, as the safest currency, then the SNB announced that it was pegging the Franc to the Euro and the rate dropped over night. As a result many people who had come late to the party say their savings reduced by as much as 20% in the space of a couple of hours!

Jim2007 (Switzerland)
 
Jim2007 example is right on the money, you don't know what is around the corner as anything from interest rates, employment statistics, quantitive easing, consumer confidence, etc etc will throw your investment into a roulette wheel. Don't forget it's a two horse race and not just a 'euro is no good' . You could make an effort of hedging your currency punt by not only a. choosing a currency that you believe to be safer but additionally b. choosing an index/stock in that currency and taking the view that while the currency may go up or down the stock/index could be worth backing I.e euro/usd is based on the past 12 months a good time to invest in s&p500 but again you're back on the racecourse.

There is a lot of speculation that ecb interest rates will come down with trichet gone and because of Europe being 'in a state of chassis' so you would imagine that euro will remain under pressure (of weakening), euro/usd has moved from. 1.34 up over 1.41 in the past week or so which is a big jump on the back of the Greek bailout but again sentiment seems to be that greece is f@$&ed so euro/usd may come back down. That could suggest that jumping into a non euro investment would make sense right now but again.....................too many variables out there for anyone to advise with any level of authority.
 
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I think I worked out before that if someone had 100k in early August and bought Swiss francs with it, their francs would now be worth ~86k euros. And that doesn't take account of conversion charges from euro->francs and back again.

Whereas if they had put their 100k in PTSB's 2 month deposit account they'd now have ~100,400 euros.

And if you google for the terms "swiss franc" + "safe haven" you'll get lots of results including plenty from July and August this year.

Of course the Swiss franc could strengthen again, also some other currencies such as the US dollar have strengthened vs the euro recently (with this trend reversing somewhat in the last week or two) But the comparison to a horse race is a good one. It's speculation and gambling and the average Joe who converts his euros because of panic risks being chewed up and spat out by the markets.
 
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