Aussie dollar falling

I fear my trip home to Ireland is going to be very costly

.61 today :-(

Hopefully things will steady again in the next couple of weeks

Thankfully I sent a slab home at around 71cents that'll do me over xmas. Feel sick watching my savings I was planning on sending home drop **** loads.

I can see it heading towards 0.56 cent in the next month or so, China is ****ed and Australia wasnt in a real healthy place before China's devaluation. Sell the Dollar for 4-5 months and then buy it back when it increases.

I plan on moving home in the new year so had to bite the bullet with all my savings yesterday at 0.62. Lost sooo much lately and feel so sick because of it. The pressure will be on me from the get-go to get a job.

Thankfully sent $10k home at .82 back in the hayday.. Missed the shot to send more when it was still in the 70's. Don't plan to return to Ireland for good until 2018 so can sit knowing I've money at home for when I visit and that I don't need to transfer everything until at the minimum early 2018.

Fingers crossed things improve in the coming years.

thinking of moving home in 12 months, whats the consensus on what I should do with my savings, send home now or hold off till next year?

Also take into account that interest rates will probably drop soon in Oz. It is normally the first thing to happen when an economy starts to creak. So unless you have a long time frame you would want to be cautious about keeping your money there.

Tigerandahalf wrote: »

Also take into account that interest rates will probably drop soon in Oz. It is normally the first thing to happen when an economy starts to creak. So unless you have a long time frame you would want to be cautious about keeping your money there.

I doubt interest rates will drop, personally. The lowering interest rates to boost business investment idea looks very dubious these days given the complete failure of the principle since 2009. Australia doesn't really need business investment to boost economic activity. The problems are entirely global and external. There might be an argument to lower interest rates to devalue the A$ but that has well and truly been taken care of and the RBA might well be actually hoping it doesn't go any lower at this point.

Then there is Australia's superannuation landscape. Many retirees depend on returns from investments for their income. Lowering interest rates any further would significantly affect this group. Already the stock market has seen a huge influx of capital seeking high dividend return equities. This has inflated the equity market significantly, though thankfully not as much as has happened in the US. If I was on the RBA board, I would not want to be lowering interest rates and inflating equity prices any more than has already happened because it could well be setting up a lot of retirees for financial Armageddon and permanent loss of independent income should there be another 2009 scale stock market crash and they panic.

Australia needs there to be a range of investments yielding returns that make self-funded retirement incomes viable. Forcing an all eggs in one basket situation would be utterly stupid.

There is already a bit of a problem with Australia's housing market being overvalued in global terms, particularly in Sydney where the median house price recently topped an insane $1 Million. It wouldn't be a stretch to assume that a lot of the recent heat in the housing market has been due to interest rates being lowered to 2%. Go lower and it will likely exacerbate the problem immensely, just as it looks like it might be stabilising a bit.

lg123 wrote: »

taking 3% off today's rate is about 0.615, which is a typical pre-GFC rate.
considering their has been about a 10% adjustment since early may, the resource demand is over and the Yuan is only going in one direction, and my 3% interest isn't guaranteed to last, I think I should start looking for a term deposit at home.

It's now back up to 0.64138. Things are way too volatile at the moment to be coming to long term conclusions I think. I have seen predictions the A$ is going to keep on going down till the end of the year but I have also seen predictions Iron Ore would go to $20 a Ton and Gold was headed for $750 or lower. Just after those predictions both turned around and went back up.

Ireland's debt is bad no doubt but Australia could follow very quickly if they don't take corrective action.
As for the dollar's value it probably needs to weaken considerably in order to attract tourists to Oz again, even to keep Aussies holidaying at home. The problem then though is that there would be a flight of money putting the banks under serious pressure. I saw an article the other day that said the big 4 Aussie banks have assets (loans) worth 200% of GDP whereas the big 4 in America before Lehmans bust were only 50% of American GDP. So these banks could fold. Deposits could be snatched as the state may not be able to step in.

Ozzie has tipped a critical technical support of 70 against the greenback. Good chance we will see new lows until the Fed raises rates.

catbear wrote: »

Aus$ back around €.64. Might get more upside next week.

its on quite a push, isn't it. what's driving it?

have some cash sitting idle in CF. thinking of buying some USD and EUR next week but not sure what split. any thoughts?

but is there much left in the cat?