What is Sterling is so weak? I know the UK is in trouble fiscally but does it warrant a drop from 1.4 to 1.06? Now at 1.11 against a Euro in trouble?
Naturally it depends on your own personal circumstances, how much is left on your mortgage, the value of your mortgage etc but I would be slow to use my savings to pay off a chunk of my mortgage.
In the event of a doomsday scenario for the Ireland and we revert to the punt the punt would be dramatically devalued against the euro and other currencies. You would be paid in punts but since your mortgage was taken out in euros, you would probably still have to pay back the euro value of the mortgage. Your euro savings and new earnings could be worth as little as 50-20% of the euro so in effect, your mortgage will have increased by 2-5 fold meaning that you will never be able to pay it off anyway (again depending on your personal circumstances). Looking at it another way, if you had 20 years left to pay in your mortgage, it would be like having to maintain the current level of payments for 40-100 yrs which is impossible.
In my humble opinion, there would be no point in wasting your savings now on a mortgage that in the above scenario, you will never be able to pay. I would just default like the rest of the country would in that situation.
I was listening to Peter Brown MD of Irish Institute of Financial Trading , on Pat Kenny yesterday saying the liklihood of the Euro going belly-up was increasing. He mentioned that switching out of the Euro involved considerable risks due to FX fluctuations.
Thanks very much for the replies folks. I dont know enough about stocks and shares to invest wisely and have seen many people lose everything in stocks and shares.
I understand that putting all my eggs in one basket doesnt sound like a good idea, however, of all the currencies, it would appear that the Canadian Dollar has been the soundest over the past number of years. boring from an investment perspective but good for someone who wants some bit of stability in a chaotic economy.
Maybe short-term. But I'd rather have my money in owning part of a company than solely owning a risky currency. If the Euro fails, good companies will survive and recover in whatever currency they operate in.
Peter Brown is spot on about Greece.They will default.That's a 100% certainty.
The whole EU project is doomed imo.
Thi sis a very common misconception, and one that especially politicians love, because they can blame someone or something else. Take the UK where both Wales and NI have significantly weaker economies than the majority of England. This line of argumentation would suggest that Wales and NI are being held back by an unnecessarily strong sterling which suits England. You can argue the same for the US, where Wyoming has a very weak economy when compared to California. But they still have the same currency and exchange rate.that is actually the strength of sterling that it has the flexibility to move with the british economy and that is the weakness of the euro in that it doesnt have the flexibility to move with the irish or greek economies, that is why there is all this talk about the euro breaking up because it cannot flex, what would have happened to the irish punt in the current situation, it would have fallen by 50% back in 2008 taking the huge strain off the economy and restoring competitiveness. For safety i would recomend putting money into US dollars or sterling even though they may weaken further although i cannot see that happening against the euro with all the troubles it is having, I believe the euro itself will eventually take the strain because it has to, they will monetize the debts and print euros and allow it to fall.
The only thing they can do to stop the Euro from failing is quantitative and qualitative easing, which in itself will ultimately cause the currency to fail. I don't understand how people can argue that it is going to be a situation of letting a currency fail, when the levels of debt we are talking about indicate that there simply will be no other option.They're not going to let the euro fail...that would be a disaster they cant contemplate
Happens to many investors, but this is only a problem if you have a large portion of your assets in one company or industry, which is always a bad idea.Yeah exactly but what if you happen to pick a bad company or a company that turns bad....say for example you invested some money in a mobile phone company and they God forbid found out the mobile radiation risk was very high after all...company would be wiped out.....
Gaining ground against what? Other weak currencies like Sterling and USD. But if you measure against CHF or AUD or more importantly gold you see how much it is weakening.No way is the Euro going down. Day by day it gains ground. (
At the moment I am in the market for a new car and so the price of new cars is my current benchmark. Down 20% in Euro terms since a few years ago.Gaining ground against what? Other weak currencies like Sterling and USD. But if you measure against CHF or AUD or more importantly gold you see how much it is weakening.
Yeah exactly but what if you happen to pick a bad company or a company that turns bad....say for example you invested some money in a mobile phone company and they God forbid found out the mobile radiation risk was very high after all...company would be wiped out.....
Default = Drachma is an incorrect equation however.
At the moment I am in the market for a new car and so the price of new cars is my current benchmark. Down 20% in Euro terms since a few years ago.
We are three years into argueing about default, the euro and whether the govt. are going to help themselves to our deposits, and guess what all of the above have not happened yet. But keep argueing the point lads, you have got to be right some day. Stop the guess work and get behind the country and lets all try to build a more stable economy. Deposit rates are good and although I dislike Kenny a lot I have to admire his tackling of the vat rate, the bonus culture etc. We have got to stop talking the country down. It's time to play our part and keep our money at home, It's as safe here as anywhere else.,
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