British Expat Forum

I just had an email from a forex company saying that now is a great time to sell GBP and buy Euros. (It's not a spam, they're legit and we've dealt with them before.)

I don't know whether we should act on it or not - and anyway we don't have a Euro bank account (we have GBP and USD). What's your take on it?

I guess it's just speculation after all. Mind you, we did that once before with dollars - bought cheap and then bought sterling again when it moved in our favour.

[Edit for typo]

Always risky IMO, the markets (and money in general) have no friends it does what it wants and damn the rest of you. With Greece deciding to put the EEC budget stuff to a referendum, if it fails to pass Greece is in deep sh*t and the Euro is bound to fall again. So, I guess it's a bet that Greece will pass the referendum.....good luck.

GozoMark was recommending buying € earlier today, of course. He doesn't sound too sanguine that the Greeks will even be in the Eurozone by the time their referendum comes around...

http://britishexpat.com/expatforum/malta/viewtopic.php?p=63351#63351

Personally I wouldn't touch a Euro with a barge pole, I reckon over the next 4 weeks or so it is likely to decrease in value considerably, and the Pound may well increase in value against other currencies. ( Have I got that right, or is it the wrong way round?) Anyway, I know that today I can get considerably more Levs per pound than I could last week, or for most of the past year to be truthful. Certainly makes my pension go further.

I think the euro has a lot further to fall - my recommendation to buy euros is from the POV of someone needing to buy euros on a regular basis for living expenses - I think the € will get to 1.30-1.40 in the next 2-3 years, and 1.20-1.25 in the next 12 months

Browsing through here I thought it would be good to post a chart to see if the forex company that sent your email was right.

And...they were wrong

The pink dotted line is the 1st November 2011, and the grey line is the price now. This is EURGBP so the lower on the chart, the more euros you get for every pound.

As we can see the best time was actually back in June 2010 (at least since the big jump up to almost 1:1). It'll be interesting to see what happens over the next few months. I'm not a believer in fundamentals (the big players use fundamental news to their advantage, not ours) and not a believer in being able to read the chart long term - I'm more about intraday trading when I do.

Edit: changed to a URL so you can see the whole chart as the forum cuts off the right side (and showing this chart at 640x480 isn't going to work )

Edit edit: Forgot to say, Mark was right

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/14748739/Forex/eurgbp%2001111.gif

give enough forecasts, and one will come right eventually

Hit 1.215 today, an 18 month high

I need it to hit its highs around the 8th of each month, when I make my monthly GBP to Euros transfer... Things are at least beginning to look up, but we haven't reached what I like to think of as the natural value of the Euro - equivalent to around 10FFr to the pound