jt wrote:
- quote -

It's still 75 basis points, more or less.

"EverBank offers a very competitive conversion fee, typically executing
buys and sells at approximately .75% away from the traded spot rate at
the time of conversion. Trades in excess of $100,000 are charged just
..50% over our traded price."

http://www.everbank.com/documents/wm_Guide.asp#Cost

--
Mark Freeland
nBeOwXs[at]pacbell.net

jt <daft[at]hotmail.com> wrote:

- quote -

Well, what's really happening is that a bunch of asian banks are doing
their best to hold down their currencies against the dollar by buying
tons of dollars. they are doing this because they want to encourage
their export markets to the US.

What that means in practice is that major currencies whose governments
aren't doing that, take up some of the slack. So the Euro is going
higher relative to the dollar than it would if those policies weren't in
place. What most economists expect is that at some point the asian
banks aren't going to be able to hold back anymore and their currencies
will rise vs. the dollar. That would relieve pressure on the euro and
it may pull back slightly or hold even with the dollar.

OTOH, like any bubble, nobody is really sure when it will burst. If our
current account deficit keeps mounting, and the asian banks keep holding
onto their current policies, the euro could skyrocket in the next couple
years. If that happens, the euro would then be headed for a big fall
when the bubble finally burst and asian currencies became fairly valued.
Unless it can turn the trick of becoming the default reserve currency in
place of the dollar, in which case that might hold up.

Basically, to call this one and make real money on it, you've got to
make a lot of educated guesses about what will happen in currency
markets all over the world. What's pretty clear to everybody is that
the dollar probably has further to fall before it's all over, so having
some investments in other currencies is not a bad idea. The best idea
would have been to have them a few years ago, before the fall in the
dollar started.

But I wouldn't overkill it either. You never know what will happen to
turn things around, and as weak as the dollar looks right now, an awful
lot of currencies are yet weaker.


Michael

--
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired,
signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not
fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. -- Dwight Eisenhower
"In Christ there is no killing" -- St. Patrick

Don't believe everbank's advertisement. I had very bad currency trade
experience with them. I think they lie a lot to customers about the
execution price. I sold my euro the other day and the trader told me
after .75% commission, I would get 1.3240. Today they told me my
execution price is 1.3180. For currency, that is a huge spread. All
my three trades I had the same thing. I paid much higher than spot
price when I buy and sold at much lower price than spot even when you
count in .75% commission. Something very fishy about their currency
trading practice. I regretted very much that I opened accounts there.

- quote -

everbank.com used to admit in a buried place to a .75%
charge both into and out of a currency. Now a quick
look at their site shows a claim of no commission and
a rubbery statement of exchange rate among the best in
the nation.

I don't object to paying for services, but there has
been a trend of higher hidden commissions such as in
most (but not all) credit cards for currency conversions.
everbank one used to be explicit; now you don't really
know since they don't say how they set the base rate.

Hi,

In your response below, you have indicated that Everbank stings you
with commission. I recently invested in Chinese currency with
Everbank, just last week. I tried to find out their commission
structure by going through their agreements. I could find any mention
of the commission structure.

How can I find out their commission structure now.

Paddy


"jt" <daft[at]hotmail.com> wrote in message

news:<1101982801.815175.133620[at]c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> ...
- quote -

On Thu, 2 Dec 2004 05:38:47 CST, "jt" <daft[at]hotmail.com> wrote:


- quote -

Good point. While we never know *when* parties (bull markets in
stocks, real estate, commodities, etc.) will end, we have learned that
they always do.

Even though "this time it's different". <grin
-HW "Skip" Weldon
Columbia, SC

- quote -

everbank.com, but they sting you coming and going with currency
exchange commission.

- quote -

A gizzilion stock and some bond funds. Look for currency-unhedged in
http://finance.yahoo.com/l?m=&s=europe&t=M
and elsewhere. ETFs can be interesting; EWO (Austria) has been a
rocketship thru good times and bad for some reason (I guess they
have been changing to more business friendly with the new competing
east euro neighbors joining EU).

On the other hand I just heard Euro economists say the Euro is just
coasting beyond fundamentals, and it's other currencies that will
make the big gains against US dollar next.

I'm worried about the dollar continuing to fall against the Euro, and was
wondering how I could go about investing in Euros. One thought I had was to
open a savings account in Euros, which has the advantage of the money being
available to me on my next trip to Europe (hopefully a year or two away). I
couldn't really find much information on this though. I'm not trying to hide
money overseas and avoid taxes, so I'd still want an account that would send
me a 1099 for any interest I made.
If that's not a reasonable idea, are there funds I can invest in?

Thanks!