xe currency converter showing GBP going down, down, down

[madaboutharry]

Just now 1.00 GBP = 1.34 USD

[tritsofme]

1. Will it break through $1.30 by morning? $1.20? $1.10?

How low can it go? Wish I shorted sterling!

[Renew Deal]

2. Saw an article that said 11%-15%

HSBC said 15%. Goldman Sachs said 11%

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/what-the-brexit-vote-means-for-the-british-economy-183612567.html#morequotes

[Recursion]

3. Could it go... I mean... it couldn't actually go...?

Could it?

[joshcryer]

5. Looks like it stabilized.

Probably come back to 1.40-1.45. Lots of money made in those exchanges.

[Recursion]

7. It stabilized when the City opened and every single London financier moved to stop the bleeding

What happens when New York opens will be an interesting story.

[joshcryer]

8. That's a rather good point.

And actually, quite a terrifying point. People will want to make bank shorting all that money London bankers put back into it, so... yeah. Yikes.

3.5 hours...

[A HERETIC I AM]

10. I would really, REALLY like you to explain that.

People will want to make bank shorting all that money London bankers put back into it, so... yeah. Yikes.

Please. I really want to know what it is you think you meant when you typed that.

[joshcryer]

12. Short to 1.33, if it drops to 1.33 then the buys from 1.33 are rendered moot.

But it wouldn't be possible to short to 1.33 if they didn't buy back (and bring it back up to 1.40) because it would be at 1.33 or lower and they would be making a wager at the bottom. We know it bottomed at 1.33, so a short to that number is at least a risk worth taking.

Is that not how it works?

[A HERETIC I AM]

13. Are you a currency trader?

Look...I'm not trying to be a smartass or anything, it's just that the sentence I highlighted in my post was...well....nonsensical.

So I'm curious if you have experience as a currency trader or, to be a bit more blunt, if you know exactly what it means to "short" or to have a short position.

And just so you know, I am NOT a currency trader, not by a long shot, but I do know the difference between a short and a long position.

[joshcryer]

15. No. I'm asking you.

I know you're familiar with this stuff.

Can you not short a currency?

[A HERETIC I AM]

16. Yes, of course you can short a currency.

That's what George Soros famously did a while back to the Pound.

If you buy something (go long) and subsequently sell it for more than you paid for it, you obviously profit. Financial markets let you play both sides however, so if you SELL something you do not own (go short) speculating the price will fall and it DOES, you buy it back at the lower price and profit the difference. Same math, just two sides of a transaction.

Here's where I stumbled when I read your post that I responded to;

Recursion said "It stabilized when the City opened and every single London financier moved to stop the bleeding" and then mentioned the NY open, to which you responded with the text I question.

The reason the Pound fell in value through the night and immediately upon the London Markets opening was the same reason the price of ANYTHING falls - there were more sellers than there were buyers. So if you were going to be short a position on GBP's, the best scenario was to sell, or go short at the beginning of the rout and buy back shortly after the open, when the trades were made and the price fell. Of course these days a trader can make those trades in milliseconds on mere basis points (one one hundredth of a percentage point) differences and profit handsomely if they are trading a large enough volume, say in the tens of millions or more. What raised my eyebrows, so to speak was you saying that "People will make bank shorting all that money London bankers put back into it".

Well...how? If the money those London financiers have put back in (presumably you meant buying British Pound Sterling) then the short play is pretty much over for the moment. If the effect of them putting money back in was to stop the rout and turn the tide, then it is time to go LONG (BUY GBP) unless you speculate it will fall again. OK?

[joshcryer]

18. OK, I understand what you're saying.

That the bottom I suggested is no real indicator if it will fall again to that point. I guess I am a gambling man because my intuition felt that some would assume it would bottom out at where it had before, a nice figure to play with. Buyers (who wanted the pound for long term or believed it was undervalued or would bounce back) could make offers at that point, shorters could make offers at that point (expecting buyers to go to that point), and they'd both make bank, because the London financiers gave them the signal. They set the bottom. And certain people could exploit it.

But I differ to you on any issue relating to the markets, I'm just explaining my short thought logic.

[A HERETIC I AM]

19. Fair enough and that is sound reasoning.

Keep in mind that "shorters" are at odds with the bullish side of a trade, and they really don't like each other! If I am long General Electric and you come along and sell short in a big way, thus putting downward pressure on the price of the stock....



well...you aren't my friend at that point! LOL

Of course there is nothing stopping either of us from playing both sides at the same time.

One of the best lines I ever heard;

"Our investment strategy is to buy what's cheap and sell what's expensive"

That was a trader who was in a position to do both at any time and at the SAME time.

[joshcryer]

20. For what it's worth...

...I do trades, but mainly gambling / pipe dreaming. I got in on Tesla at $70 and sold at $240, was proud of that (was even more proud when I told my mom to put all of a decent check she got in at like $120 and told her to sell at $240, she felt so proud of herself, doubled up). But in that case I was watching the company and trying to figure out what was going to happen. When Tesla said they could make 300k cars after a short ramp up or something like that I kinda face palmed. I worked in mass manufacture (OK, I canned peanuts on a mass production line, literally), it's not easy to ramp up. We went through that at the company I worked with Alabama. It took two years to do it, and the job didn't even require significant training, it was literally picking jars off of a conveyor belt.

I'm all in with AMD at $4 (this is more gambling), which, given Brexit I'm worried about (the timing is terrible since their midrange graphics card line is coming out and I was hoping to double up and bail). It went up $1 in the time I had it (like two-three weeks?). I'll go long though at least until Zen comes out, whatever happens happens. I've been an AMD fanboy for years so it's at least fun and not stressful. Darn Brexit though...

But, yeah, I've never shorted anything in my life, I have no idea how I would do that risk assessment, I just figured, hey, if I had a big money account and I could do those millisecond trades, I'd short at a bottom we saw before and pray someone buys in at the same bottom and I get paid, and they get to have the currency if they think it can rebound so we both win.

[A HERETIC I AM]

21. DAMN! Kudos on the Tesla trade!

Nicely done!

I'm sure you understand that undertaking short trades is EXTREMELY risky and requires Margin Privileges. It is not for the meek, nor is it for the novice, but there are enough resources available that if you have the time to read and become well versed, you could see some success. A somewhat less risky, but STILL risky place to start doing shorts would be with stock options, Puts specifically. Buying a Put is a bit more risky than buying a Call, but nothing like selling Naked Puts or Uncovered Calls. Those last two can involve hypothetically unlimited losses, and should be only engaged in by people who understand them completely.

I'm slowly building out a new Roth I recently opened, and while picking individual stocks is always risky for those of us that do not have the time to watch a computer screen and read financial news all day (not anymore, anyway!), I've taken a few positions I feel good about and have made some money in a rather short time (up around 10% in 6 months..not bad).

I do not know enough about the gaming industry, nor do I pay attention to the ever changing gaming hardware sector to even know where to start, but you should be very proud of yourself for being willing to take risks like you do and profiting from them.

Not a damned thing wrong with that at all.

[joshcryer]

22. My mom has thanked me repeatedly for that TSLA advice, you'll never know.

She had a serious issue with credit cards (over spent on some and had to close some others), but suffice it to say I said "MOM! SELL TSLA. TRUST ME." She was holding on to it because it was her first stock ever (she also spent some money in a bunch of other companies like GE, McDonalds, etc, but the lions share was in TSLA; last I saw her whole portfolio is 'up' but not enough to cover the etrade $9.99 trade cost, unfortunately, for each stock, so she did good, but just can't 'cash out' without losing money; I don't think she understood this at the time but yeah her whole portfolio is 'green' as you might expect from good popular buys). Anyway, she sells, sadly, and was all sad about it because she had like 20-30 shares, so she got a decent paycheck, and was able to pay off the one credit card she got messed over on (had a high APR or something like that). And ever since, every time I see her, she laughs about it. Checking her phone and seeing TSLA dropping. I hate to break it to her that it'll go back up, eventually, but I'm glad she listened to me, even if it was, imo, 95% luck.

As far as AMD, I'm 100% not pumping the stock here, but just keep an eye on it. Some good stuff is happening in the gaming community, especially as it related to VR (virtual reality). Times are changing and it seems, at least in my non-financial / purely common opinion, AMD has a "winner" on its hands with the RX 480 line of graphics cards. A mainstream, $199, graphics card that seems it can compete with the other guys (Nvidia's) best card at $399, going by the leaks I've read or seen on /r/amd (reddit subreddit). I bought the stock before even hearing these rumors, btw, it was merely a cheap stock and a company I am a fan of, nothing more.

I mentioned my AMD investment incidentally to my mom, and she got 200 shares. Heh. I love that woman. I hope it works out for us both like TSLA did. I don't feel bad giving her suggestions because she seems content with all the green on her portfolio.

I did tell her last night in an "emergency call" that Brexit might make things look bad for the time being. She vowed to ignore her portfolio for the next few days.

[joshcryer]

25. BTW, I was so wrong, it never dropped to 1.33 again.

At least not in the past 24 hours. So if someone did my idea, they would've been fucked. So you were totally 100% correct and I am more of a gambler than I thought I was. Cheers!

[joshcryer]

32. Have you seen AMD lately?

[Recursion]

4. I can't even get it to load because the entire world is hammering it right now (nt)

[joshcryer]

6. Yeah, that site has been down all night.

Here's a few others: http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=GBPUSD=X

http://www.bloomberg.com/quote/GBPUSD:CUR

https://www.oanda.com/currency/live-exchange-rates/GBPUSD/

[Violet_Crumble]

9. Damn. I should have waited to buy my Vivienne Westwood boots

a few weeks ago I paid a shitload more than I would now

My boots are exactly the same as this except the straps are paler and my boots look all pristine and new.

[BlueMTexpat]

30. And dang, I wish I had waited

to order books from Amazon UK, they would have cost one heckuva a lot less.

In fact, it looks as if I soon won't be able to order ANYTHING from the UK without paying customs fees here in Switzerland. Right now, Switzerland has bi-lateral trade agreements with the EU that waive customs fees (up to certain amounts) for EU members. It doesn't have the same thing with the US.

The UK will now have to negotiate trade agreements with every country in the world with which it does not already have a separate bi-lateral trade agreement. That is a VERY long process.

[Violet_Crumble]

31. Amazon UK may have put prices up already...

I'm feeling better about my boots coz I just checked the Vivienne Westwood site and they've already gone up 65 Euro from what I paid earlier this month (sorry, I don't have a little Euro symbol on my keyboard). Speaking of waived customs fees, I got slugged hard when I got a surprise call from FedEx telling me that because the boots went over the import threshold by a few dollars I'd have to pay $250 in taxes and import duty when they got here. Ouch....

I'm in Australia and we've got trade agreements with the EU as the UK is one of our main trading partners. So if they do leave the EU things will have to go back to what they were before 1973 and we'll have a separate bilateral agreement with them.

I think it's going to end up being a very long and very messy process if the UK does end up leaving the EU, and I'm not entirely convinced that'll end up happening...

[Yavin4]

11. This is why I own gold.

So that I can sleep at night.

[A HERETIC I AM]

14. Gotta love those dividends, eh? n/t

[Yavin4]

23. No matter what your investment strategy is.

No matter how much time and research you do. No matter how well balanced your portfolio is. All it takes for your portfolio to tumble is shit like this. Shit that you have no control over. Shit that you didn't know about until a couple of months ago.

[jamzrockz]

17. At least

it is good for exports, right?

[Yavin4]

24. Export to where?

The EU? The US? All those relationships have to be re-negotiated.

[GreatGazoo]

28. English muffins...."a little english" for my billiards shot... Olde English 800....

all 30% off !

[aikoaiko]

29. Oh boy. I think the Bentayga just dropped into my price range.