This FX rate is giving me sleepless nights. We are in the process of purchasing a property in Portugal and got the deposit down there getting a half decent rate of about 1.71. Now the pound is weakening further, dipping below 1.6 today but trundling along. It's a bit of a PITA since it was not long ago it went over 1.20. Maybe the markets will recover in a couple months when we plan to complete.
I suppose there is a supplementary question. Having a UK pension paying into a EUR account will always be affected by FX rates. Anyone got ideas - moving my pension to Ireland Domicile - how can I do that?
I know I should be thankful that I have a pension and some cash to pay for a foreign property - but the way the 'markets' react it's as if there is no human control - oh hang on a minute....
I share your anxiety a little. We have sent money out to Spain recently to support our residency application in July.
We intend on buying somewhere over the next month or so and will also be at the mercy of the markets as we send more over.
In terms of denominating your pension into EUR doesn't the old saying buy low sell high - strikes me that if you did decide to do this it might make sense to do it on better terms gbp/eur wise.
So many decisions to get wrong :)
Do you actually mean 1.17, 1.16 & 1.20?Originally Posted by MartynJC (UK)
It’s been a long, long time since you could get 1.7 Euros for each Pound.
Yes - thanks for the corrections. Think its now a little hovering around 1.16 now..
It’s a lottery I suppose a little off subject I booked my wedding in Greece in 2016 before the pound dropped from 1.42 to 1.11 in 2017 when it came to paying the bill. It ended up costing far more than anticipated! I don’t see a crash like this again but the bigger numbers for a property purchase could see a bigger loss or gain hopefully fingers crossed for you !
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You can protect yourself with instruments from the bank - we do this with our accounts receivable especially when currency is volatile.
If you know the cost of the house you could place a "take profit" order so if the pound hits your defined exchange rate it will automatically occur. So if you need to achieve 1.18 you can place an order to hit at 1.18 plus commission so you get the money back you need.
You could also do similar with your pension payments if a known amount.
Of course you may not want lock too much in at a fairly low rate however if you are committed to converting fairly large sums of money in a foreign currency on certain dates that does need a strategy to protect you and also to ensure you are paying a small amount of commission.
Whilst I am certainly not a forex trader - I only buy to pay invoices and protect our profits - please PM if want to discuss.
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