However, a number of ETers have income and/or assets in dollars and expenses in Euros. They are exposed to exchange rate risk already - what they need is a currency swap which, taken today at par, would be favourable if the dollar keeps losing value. Others have said they intend to move from the US to the EU shortly. They need a hedge against their dollar assets losing a lot of value by the time they are actually ready to make the move. Yet others have expressed a desire to speculatively bet against the dollar. Chris has been talking about "borrow dollars to buy energy assets" for a while. His Bulgarian brewery example just has the brewery play the role of what in other comment threads has been energy assets. So the idea would be to pool the dollar assets of willing ETers in the situations mentioned above (the economies of scale in terms of commissions and financing costs are substantial!) and use those dollar assets as (dollar) margin to buy a portfolio of energy and/or euro assets with the combined income, return and liquidity requirements of the various people involved.
However, a number of ETers have income and/or assets in dollars and expenses in Euros. They are exposed to exchange rate risk already - what they need is a currency swap which, taken today at par, would be favourable if the dollar keeps losing value.
Others have said they intend to move from the US to the EU shortly. They need a hedge against their dollar assets losing a lot of value by the time they are actually ready to make the move.
Yet others have expressed a desire to speculatively bet against the dollar.
Chris has been talking about "borrow dollars to buy energy assets" for a while. His Bulgarian brewery example just has the brewery play the role of what in other comment threads has been energy assets.
So the idea would be to pool the dollar assets of willing ETers in the situations mentioned above (the economies of scale in terms of commissions and financing costs are substantial!) and use those dollar assets as (dollar) margin to buy a portfolio of energy and/or euro assets with the combined income, return and liquidity requirements of the various people involved.
you are the media you consume.
some technical analysts think the dollar is nearing its bottom
They put the "anal" in analysts I think, because it is their fundament these wishful thinkers are talking out of IMHO.
The $ is looking into a black hole - that's for sure... "Any economic unit can emit money. The serious problem is to get it accepted" Hyman Minsky
My only regret is that visiting Europe is going to be very painful due to my frugal nature - which is to say that I am known as the king of 'cheap' in my county.
Nonetheless, I'm still willing and able - at this point - to help to bootstrap think-tanks and such like. paul spencer
My wife and I visited Switzerland for 2 weeks in 1985, and I had been there alone several times in the early 80's. Never again I think.
One thing I have been doing over the last few years is being heavily invested in non-US stock mutual funds. (DODFX, AEPGX, etc) The question is should I move some cash there too?
Question - Japanese yen seem to be strongly undervalued. What would the risks be in that currency? I will point out one aspect - we just about cannot spend it in Japan, because they have jimmied the books from a different angle. Everything there - in the big cities at least - is overpriced. paul spencer
I have a bunch of yen, and debt in the US, and I'm just waiting to cash in on the final day of reckoning.
Actually, sometimes I wonder how much I should bet on this. I do have massive, untapped credit card reserves . . .
yup. i waited, and waited, and waited for a time when the yen would "bounce back" against the euro so i could convert some for long term savings. never happened. so i just bit it and exchanged at 155 yen to the euro some time last spring. frikking outrageous. i'm convinced that if it weren't for the sorry dollar, the yen would be much higher against the euro.
but the yen is still fairly strong against the dollar. in fact, at this rate, i would have converted my yen into dollars if i wanted to pay off U.S. dollar debts. (now i'm just praying the Bank of China doesn't adjust the yuan basket unfavorably with respect to the yen.) Truth unfolds in time through a communal process.
