INTL Exchange

Hello, I am doing a economics essay about fixed and flexible exchange rates, where it suggests that a fixed exchange rate will lead to a currency crisis, so countries should adopt a flexible exchange rate. Is this true? any online sources would be of great help. Thanks in advance.

There are two ways for a fixed exchange rate to be stable:

1) Very similar economic cycles and growth rates in the two areas that have the fixed rate.
2) Large flows of capital (and labour) between the two economies to make up for any economic imbalance between them.

(3. And also a government willing to spend huge amounts of money foreign reserves or its own currency) to keep the exchange rate fixed when economic factors suggest they are out of balance.)

As for examples, the UK in the ERM. The Japanese Yen trying to stay within a narrow band of the Dollar. The Chinese currency over the last few years should have been increasing in value massively but wasn’t (reason 3).
Also, look at the massive flows of gold between nations when they were tied to the gold standard.

I recently went to my bank to see if i can take 3000 of my money and convert it to Taiwanese Dollar. At the time, bank informed me the rate was 0.034882. However, when i checked online, the rate was different. I thought i would get $99,219.00 TWD, instead of the $86,100.00 TWD. Why is that?

XE.com General Questions
This is from the following web site and thoroughly answers your question.
http://www.xe.com/faq.php#midmarket

We obtain our rates from a wide variety of sources. We use advanced proprietary systems to factor in available data from all sources and automatically detect errors in the individual feeds. This allows us to generate a highly reliable composite data feed that is much more timely and accurate than any of the individual feeds.

We strive to always include the latest available market data from live, real-time rate feeds containing data from foreign exchange markets all around the world. Because it’s always daytime somewhere in the world, there is a good chance that a currency market somewhere is currently trading. Our sources are global, which means that data for a specific currency can be updated even when the markets of its home country are closed. Where a specific currency is not regularly traded, we use the most recent data available.

2. Are your "mid-market" currency rates buy rates or sell rates?

The mid-market rates shown in our information services are neither "buy" rates nor "sell" rates. Mid-market rates are derived from mid-point between the buy and sell rates of large-value transactions in the global currency markets.

Since "buy rates" and "sell rates" include overheads and profit margins that are set independently by each foreign exchange provider, they will vary depending on who you’re talking to, and will always be different than the mid-market rate.

An Example to Illustrate the Difference Between Buy Rates, Sell Rates, and Mid-Market Rates

Like any non-centralized, widely distributed market, the currency market has different prices when you’re buying and when you’re selling. As an example of how this market operatives, let’s consider a similar and familiar market: antiques.

Let’s say you find an antique lamp in your house. You look up the value of the lamp on the Internet and find that on average, the market value of your lamp is $200.

So you take the lamp to the antiques dealer and they offer $180 for your lamp. Yes, it may be technically worth $200, but the dealer has to buy it for a little less than market value in order to stay in business. So they buy the lamp from you for $180.

So next you go home, only to find out that the lamp was an important heirloom that should not have been sold. So you head back to the market to buy back the lamp. Luckily, they haven’t sold it. You see the lamp in the store window, but now the price tag says $220! The dealer has marked the lamp up from market value in order to stay in business. So they sell the lamp back to you for $220.

In this example, the antique dealer’s buy rate was $180, and their sell rate was $220. The average of the buy rate and the sell rate is the market rate, which was $200. However, it is important to note that no trade actually occurred for this amount. With the lamp, as with currency, nobody trades at the mid market rate. Anyone who did would lose money.

Of course, different dealers might have charged different amounts. One might have offered to buy the lamp for $150, another for $190. But in no case can dealers buy at more than the market rate, or sell at less than the market rate, without going out of business in the long run.

The exact same thing is true when dealing with currencies. All currencies have a market rate, and different dealers will set different buy and sell rates depending on the money they want to make. When converting from one currency to another, you are always buying one currency and selling another, so you will always get the buy rate from one currency and the sell rate from the other.

The further the buy and sell rates are from the market rate, the more the transaction costs you. Some dealers are very far from the market rate, whereas we at XEtrade strive to save you money by making our rates as close as possible.

In summary, buy and sell rates are prices set by currency dealers to stay in business.

When doing a conversion, our free currency information services always list the mid-market rate, since we can not know if you will be buying or selling a given currency. The mid-market rate is the most generally useful number, since it serves as a reliable, indicative value for the currency that is not weighted towards buying or selling.

I live in the southwest suburbs of Chicago…I can’t find a foreign currency exchange store anywhere online. There’s a "Currency Exchange" place near my house, but that’s for cashing checks and getting birth/marriage/death certificates and stuff like that. I need to get 10 Euros in order to buy something from Ireland (they don’t accept US dollars). Does anyone know of one? I can’t go downtown either…Is there any place in the suburbs that swap money?

Most internationally accepted credit cards will exchange the currency automatically when you make the purchase. So if they accept credit cards, you can just do that.

If you have to use cash, many regular banks can exchange currency, but in my experience, most suburban banks will have to order it for you, so it can take some time.

If I had 100,000.00 in yen . How much would it be in american? I tried using a currency exchange rate service online but I cant figure it out, Thanks in advance
wow, one hundred thousand dollars yen is only eight hundred fourty two.dollars american? Am i reading this right? Please tell me Im wrong.

1 US dollar = 118.524 Yen.
1 Yen = 0.00843709 USD.

These rates will constantly change.

So if you convert 100,000 YEN into US dollar, you would get $843.93

http://www.armaniexchange.com

United States Dollars (USD) ofcourse

I mean would it be legal, within the United States, to run an online poker (or anything gambling related for general purposes) game for fake currency?

Subsequently, is it STILL legal if players were allowed to exchange the fake currency for real currency?

I’m not sure, but I think sites like CentSports.com are following this (unsure if tehy’re US-based).

although it may be expensive to start a free poker site it is legal because it is only a game and not gambling. As for th latter you cannot have money transfers involved.

I want to exchange some GBP money into Euros for my holiday. I only want to convert £60. The minimum order Online is £350. Whats the in-store minimum value?

dont think there is one - if you are near an m&S though do it there as the rates are a bit better.

Better still, if you bank with Nationwide then just use your card out there as they give an awesome deal.

There are tons of ads for courses for FOREX online, but they cost hundreds of dollars, and there is always an element of suspicion around them. I am looking for simple, basic, and clear instruction course which is not designed to sell me this and that. Naturally, I will pay, but within reason.

There are plenty of good methods out there being sold by a lot of traders and scam artists alike - all cashing in on the greed that people have. Some work, others are just exaggerated.

At least you are looking into it… other traders just simply gamble away their money.

My suggestion is, once you’ve found a method that works for your trading style - stick to it. There are so many ways to skin a cat as there are to trade - there is no one "right" way to trade.

I am interested in converting U.S. dollars to Euros, at a later date (say, 6 to 24 months) but like to lock in the current exchange rate. How do I do this, and which financial institutions can help me (banks, online brokerages, etc)?

There are several EFT (Exchange Traded Funds) that are focused on currencies.You can buy the EFT or buy or sell Options on the EFT of your choice. Options are a sophisticated investment vehicle that requires some homework and research before trading. Any online brokerage house will have EFT’s available for trading. There are also reverse EFT that will go up when the underlying commodity goes down and visa versa.

If an exchange rate system is using common currency,is it a fixed or floating exchange rate system?Common currency is simply a monetary union/integration whereby the same legal tender is broadly accepted in a region of countries.For example,although the Euro is adopted, U.K retains its British Pound and floats it.Why is it that every article I visit online, says that a common currency system is a fixed exchange rate system?A region may use a common currency but still chooses to float its single country’s currency and a central authority may still float the common currency right?

Normally we think of a country as having only one system of currency. You describe a situation of two currencies, one of which is common to at least one other country.

So the common form of currency is fixed currency (at least between the two countries) and the local currency can be fixed or floating in value relative to this common kind, as the choice of the government so decides.

Most writers of articles don’t need to mention the full situation in order to make their discussion points. It is not that they are unaware of the more complex situation, they simply choose to assume it, so as to avoid having to go into greater detail.