Take some of you money and invest in some kind of tourism businesses
in the US.
As the dollar drops, US tourism becomes a more affordable destination
for all of those Europeans who have so much vacation time!

Vin - Crash Test Videos, Automotive Recall lists, and Technical
Service Bulletins (TSB) at:
http://AutoSmash.com




On May 3, 9:51 am, darknes...[at]yahoo.com wrote:
- quote -


======================================= MODERATOR'S COMMENT:
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On May 2, 5:11 pm, darknes...[at]yahoo.com wrote:
- quote -


PS it's a fair bet prices will double every 30 years or so in the US.
The 1970s was an aberation (where they doubled in that decade) and so
too was (we hope) the 1930s (when they ended the decade lower than
when they started). There are some powerful disinflationary forces in
the global economy (basically telecommunications means companies can
move service jobs to low wage economies, and cheap transport means
companies can manufacture in cheaper and cheaper locations) which may
push inflation down below that 2-2.5% pa figure.

Gold to some extent protects against that (or it used to). But the
cost of services (like health care) tends to rise much faster than the
price of goods (consider the computer you can buy now with $1000,
against the computer you could buy in 1980 with $1000). Since as you
get older, one tends to consume more services (like health care, and
college tuition) and relatively less goods, this is a problem.

Property is something of a hedge against that (rents tend to rise with
inflation over the long run) and so are stocks (albeit not a perfect
one). Timber (believe it or not) has been a fantastic hedge against
inflation, long run.

On 2 May, 05:22, Ron Peterson <r...[at]shell.core.com> wrote:
hould protect you from a drop
- quote -

Whilst a fall in the dollar would be bad for many exporters, many
companies have operations in the US, which protect them to an extent
(they lose on the profits translation, but they are no less
competitive) .

And although the US is a very big economy, and the world's largest
exporter (and importer) it is 1/4 of the world economy. The rest of
the world counts too, in corporate earnings terms.

On 1 May, 22:17, "Mr Tutu" <m...[at]tutu.hu> wrote:
- quote -

Consider:

- gold and gold shares (up to 5% of portfolio) a traditional defence
against inflation but very volatile and with a mixed long term track
record (periods of exceptional performance and *long* periods of poor
performance)
- Everbank runs foreign currency bank accounts
- an ETF like IOO, which owns shares in the world's 100 largest
companies. As all of these companies are global, there is a degree of
'natural hedging' against exchange rate movements, and against
inflation (as inflation rises, the sales of these companies also rise)
- any international mutual fund which does *not* hedge currency
movements.

FWIW the US dollar is very undervalued against the Euro and the Pound,
on a purchasing power parity basis. The Yen (and the renimbi) are the
currencies which look very much 'too cheap' against the dollar, and
may well rise.

"Mr Tutu" <mr[at]tutu.hu> wrote in message
news:59pas0F2lu37jU1[at]mid.individual.net...
- quote -

IMHO, I would think gold (the hard stuff, not the funds) would be a good
hedge against inflation. I'm my opinion, the movement of the price of gold
is rarely a thing to use as an investment, but as a hedge against inflation,
it looks pretty good. As the dollar devaluates, or the euro, or the yen, or
whatever, the number of (put currency of choice here) that you can get for
an ounce of gold will go up.
B


======================================= MODERATOR'S COMMENT:
Please trim the post to which you are responding. "Trim" means that except for a FEW lines to add context, the previous post is deleted.

On May 1, 10:57 am, "Mr Tutu" <m...[at]tutu.hu> wrote:
- quote -

Funds that invest primary in international bonds and stocks will give
you currency protection. They hold assets that are bought with foreign
currencies and are redeemed in those currencies. Hence, the return
number posted will include the currency fluctuations even though
investment companies might show a dollar value.

On May 1, 12:57 pm, "Mr Tutu" <m...[at]tutu.hu> wrote:

- quote -

Investing in U.S. non-financial assets should protect you from a drop
in the value of the dollar. I am not sure about overseas funds since a
drop in the dollar will drastically reduce exports to the US.

--
Ron

On May 1, 2:17 pm, "Mr Tutu" <m...[at]tutu.hu> wrote:
- quote -


It depends on how far in the future this non-US retirement is, and
where is it going to be.

PeterL wrote:
- quote -

well, I was hoping to *not* retire in the usa. that said, if milk and bread
would cost a wheelbarrowload of dollar bills (inflation), foreign currency
(or so went the argument) would potentially shield against that scenario

On May 1, 10:57 am, "Mr Tutu" <m...[at]tutu.hu> wrote:
- quote -


What would happen to you should there be a "sudden and dramatic drop"
in the value of the US dollar? Would your purchasing power be
dramatically lower? Would you lose your job? Would your investments
be negatively affected?

What I am asking is, what are you trying to protect against?

"Mr Tutu" <mr[at]tutu.hu> wrote:


- quote -

It depends on whether the funds hedge currency risk and how much exposure the
fund's investments have to the dollar. Some mutual funds will buy or sell
currency futures to remove currency risk from the portfolio, leaving only the
risk of the stock investments. Others will not. You need to read the fund
prospectus to find out.

Often non-US companies will have some exposure to the dollar. On the other
hand, many US companies have significant overseas operations that would benefit
from a dollar decline.

One way of hedging yourself against dollar decline is an unhedged bond fund such
as PIMCO Foreign Bond (Unhedged) A PFUAX. There are probably others.

-- Doug

On May 1, 10:57 am, "Mr Tutu" <m...[at]tutu.hu> wrote:
- quote -

Why bother? For 99.9% of us, we buy and sell, owe and invest, in U.S.
dollars, so to a first approximation, it matters naught how many euros
a dollar will buy. What you should be concerned first with, is
inflation.
That is when your dollars start to buy less of what you actually want
to
buy. Over the long term, the stock market is a good inflation-
protector.
If you want to *profit/speculate/invest* in currency fluctuations,
that's
a different issue, and that's not for most people...
Joe Weinstein

background: a pretty ordinary family with one income, allowed combination(s)
of IRA, Roth IRA and 401k
accounts and saving about 10% of annual salary as before-tax into the 401k

the argument is that within our family, we consider the us dollar to be
overvalued, whatwith the levels of national debt, levels of trade imbalance
and amounts owed to foreign entities. we also understand that there are
strong reasons why the chinese would not want/wish for a weak(er) dollar as
that would create problems for their sales of exports to the usa.

thus, is there anything an ordinary individual can do, to protect against a
sudden or dramatic drop in the value of the dollar? am I also correct in
stating that while the IRA, Roth IRA and 401k are all invested in mutual
funds or index funds that primarily are overseas (europe and asia) funds and
stocks in funds, that in itself offers no real protection, should the dollar
drop in value?

I realize there are sophisticated methods of commodities trading in
currencies but I have no plan to undertake such a method.

about the only thing I can think of is to march to my bank and start buying
euros with cash....perhaps a bit too dramatic but what else may we do?