Forex - is it this volatile?
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I keep track of the big three currencies (USD, EUR, GBP) against the Rupee, but I check the rates roughly once in a day or two. Of late, I've been tracking GBP/INR fairly closely, because I have some GBP I need to convert. I'm just waiting for a favourable rate. Still, I don't check more than twice or thrice a day. Anyway, I checked the rate on xe.com and saw that it was 81.5107. Went to a different tab, read a couple of posts on CP, and went back to xe and decided to hit F5, for no good reason. Must have taken me a minute or two in between, not more than that. Now the rate is 82.1653! :wtf: Are the forex markets usually this volatile, or does this have something to do with the bloodbath on the bourses? Two of Wall Street's four pillars are down. Agatha Christie comes to mind - "and then there were none"... :~
Cheers, Vıkram.
"if abusing me makes you a credible then i better give u the chance which didnt get in real" - Adnan Siddiqi.
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I keep track of the big three currencies (USD, EUR, GBP) against the Rupee, but I check the rates roughly once in a day or two. Of late, I've been tracking GBP/INR fairly closely, because I have some GBP I need to convert. I'm just waiting for a favourable rate. Still, I don't check more than twice or thrice a day. Anyway, I checked the rate on xe.com and saw that it was 81.5107. Went to a different tab, read a couple of posts on CP, and went back to xe and decided to hit F5, for no good reason. Must have taken me a minute or two in between, not more than that. Now the rate is 82.1653! :wtf: Are the forex markets usually this volatile, or does this have something to do with the bloodbath on the bourses? Two of Wall Street's four pillars are down. Agatha Christie comes to mind - "and then there were none"... :~
Cheers, Vıkram.
"if abusing me makes you a credible then i better give u the chance which didnt get in real" - Adnan Siddiqi.
I don't have an answer specifically for you but we do a lot of exchange from US to CAN and what you see online bears little reality with what you will actually get through the bank, there are often significant differences in time between a change on the open market taking effect at the bank (they always delay in their favour whenever possible, i.e. if you get a payment in US dollars the exchange and receipt of your money is not done immediately, there is a gray area of time there which they take full advantage of by holding out for what is in their own best interest, we've seen it time and time again over many years). Better to check with the bank itself or whoever is going to be doing your actual exchange and only consider those online sites for general trend information.
"It's so simple to be wise. Just think of something stupid to say and then don't say it." -Sam Levenson
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I don't have an answer specifically for you but we do a lot of exchange from US to CAN and what you see online bears little reality with what you will actually get through the bank, there are often significant differences in time between a change on the open market taking effect at the bank (they always delay in their favour whenever possible, i.e. if you get a payment in US dollars the exchange and receipt of your money is not done immediately, there is a gray area of time there which they take full advantage of by holding out for what is in their own best interest, we've seen it time and time again over many years). Better to check with the bank itself or whoever is going to be doing your actual exchange and only consider those online sites for general trend information.
"It's so simple to be wise. Just think of something stupid to say and then don't say it." -Sam Levenson
John C wrote:
what you see online bears little reality with what you will actually get
Oh, absolutely. I was just curious if the rates move so much in such a small interval.
Cheers, Vıkram.
"if abusing me makes you a credible then i better give u the chance which didnt get in real" - Adnan Siddiqi.
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I keep track of the big three currencies (USD, EUR, GBP) against the Rupee, but I check the rates roughly once in a day or two. Of late, I've been tracking GBP/INR fairly closely, because I have some GBP I need to convert. I'm just waiting for a favourable rate. Still, I don't check more than twice or thrice a day. Anyway, I checked the rate on xe.com and saw that it was 81.5107. Went to a different tab, read a couple of posts on CP, and went back to xe and decided to hit F5, for no good reason. Must have taken me a minute or two in between, not more than that. Now the rate is 82.1653! :wtf: Are the forex markets usually this volatile, or does this have something to do with the bloodbath on the bourses? Two of Wall Street's four pillars are down. Agatha Christie comes to mind - "and then there were none"... :~
Cheers, Vıkram.
"if abusing me makes you a credible then i better give u the chance which didnt get in real" - Adnan Siddiqi.
The Forex can be a bit wild, especially when the financial sector is in an uproar. Traders are trying to cover their bases and guess what the market impact of major changes might be. A huge player just went tits up, and another got swallowed up by BofA. Yet a third - the world's largest insurance company - is in trouble. It's not a good time for speculators' collective digestions. For myself, I had a nagging hunch Friday and placed a stop limit order for a small bit of Lehman Brothers at $4. I figured if BofA decided to buy it out over the weekend, the stock might rise a bit this morning, so I set my spot bid a little higher than Friday's close. But, on the other hand, if they backed out the ensuing bloodbath would make my actual purchase price much lower. It panned out - my buy settled at $.36 a share this morning, and analysts are still calling for 2009 earnings of more than $2 a share if the company continues operations. Many companies do, and I've seen several that worked their way back after a Chapter 11 bankruptcy (Chrysler comes to mind, though I missed that one). If LEH manages to reorganize and stick to their core business, I stand to do very nicely on a $36 investment. If not, it's only $36 - I can't even buy a decent book for that little. The key note in this market, I think, is to remember that most failures are due to investments in overpriced US real estate - commercial, in particular - suddenly turning upside down because of the real estate slump. That beats the hell out of the financial sector because they're all in each others' pockets. But real estate always surges, then collapses, at about a ten year cycle rate. The upturn will happen in the next two years, I think, and that worthless real estate will rise to something approaching its true market value. In the meantime, if you're into the Forex game, you're in for a wild ride. Have fun! :-D
"A Journey of a Thousand Rest Stops Begins with a Single Movement"
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I keep track of the big three currencies (USD, EUR, GBP) against the Rupee, but I check the rates roughly once in a day or two. Of late, I've been tracking GBP/INR fairly closely, because I have some GBP I need to convert. I'm just waiting for a favourable rate. Still, I don't check more than twice or thrice a day. Anyway, I checked the rate on xe.com and saw that it was 81.5107. Went to a different tab, read a couple of posts on CP, and went back to xe and decided to hit F5, for no good reason. Must have taken me a minute or two in between, not more than that. Now the rate is 82.1653! :wtf: Are the forex markets usually this volatile, or does this have something to do with the bloodbath on the bourses? Two of Wall Street's four pillars are down. Agatha Christie comes to mind - "and then there were none"... :~
Cheers, Vıkram.
"if abusing me makes you a credible then i better give u the chance which didnt get in real" - Adnan Siddiqi.
Vikram A Punathambekar wrote:
or does this have something to do with the bloodbath on the bourses?
Yes. Ike wiped out 20% of our refinery capacity, oil is up, gold is up, the dollar is down, people are freaked out by the collapse of LB, followed maybe by WaMu, etc. Fear (False Evidence Appearing Real) takes the day. Marc
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I don't have an answer specifically for you but we do a lot of exchange from US to CAN and what you see online bears little reality with what you will actually get through the bank, there are often significant differences in time between a change on the open market taking effect at the bank (they always delay in their favour whenever possible, i.e. if you get a payment in US dollars the exchange and receipt of your money is not done immediately, there is a gray area of time there which they take full advantage of by holding out for what is in their own best interest, we've seen it time and time again over many years). Better to check with the bank itself or whoever is going to be doing your actual exchange and only consider those online sites for general trend information.
"It's so simple to be wise. Just think of something stupid to say and then don't say it." -Sam Levenson
If you plan on buying/selling regular amounts of currency you might want to get in bed with FX provider. If they're any good you should get a better rate than what a bank offers you. I can't say much more than that without giving away company secrets I'm afraid :(
But fortunately we have the nanny-state politicians who can step in to protect us poor stupid consumers, most of whom would not know a JVM from a frozen chicken. Bruce Pierson
Because programming is an art, not a science. Marc Clifton
I gave up when I couldn't spell "egg". Justine Allen -
If you plan on buying/selling regular amounts of currency you might want to get in bed with FX provider. If they're any good you should get a better rate than what a bank offers you. I can't say much more than that without giving away company secrets I'm afraid :(
But fortunately we have the nanny-state politicians who can step in to protect us poor stupid consumers, most of whom would not know a JVM from a frozen chicken. Bruce Pierson
Because programming is an art, not a science. Marc Clifton
I gave up when I couldn't spell "egg". Justine AllenI don't think we have any option sadly. We sell our software online through ShareIT. All the sales are in US dollars, every month they wire transfer our payment to our bank and we have to provide them with a bank account. The only other option is to get a cheque mailed out.
"It's so simple to be wise. Just think of something stupid to say and then don't say it." -Sam Levenson
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John C wrote:
what you see online bears little reality with what you will actually get
Oh, absolutely. I was just curious if the rates move so much in such a small interval.
Cheers, Vıkram.
"if abusing me makes you a credible then i better give u the chance which didnt get in real" - Adnan Siddiqi.
Vikram A Punathambekar wrote:
I was just curious if the rates move so much in such a small interval.
Of course they do, just like stocks and commodities or any item on eBay. Normally only traders in the specific markets see these changes, because they are the ones buying and selling (i.e. they are the ones who make the changes based on their offers to buy or sell their product). However, just as you don't buy strawberries based on the last-bid wholesale market price but at the price the store you're buying them from sets, you must buy different currency from the bank or exchange at whatever rate they set.