(edit title) Pound below SEK 11 Last one out of the UK turn the lights off please Options

[summo]

I think the losses announced by Lloyds and RBS this week have had an effect. Although their losses were less than last year, the governments bail out money has just disappeared into them. The conservative party did a rather weak and wishy washy speech at a bankers meet this week, so their faith is low.

The political thing with the Argies is having a small impact, although the oil companies share prices have not dipped. Some traders in S America may be reluctant to due business with the UK for fear of stepping out of line with their governments policy.

Either way, good for Swedes travelling to the UK and good for UK exports, but bad for any Brits transferring money to Sweden.

[Blackman_for_Blondes]

Just read this very interesting it all hangs on the election...its good for me I bought my apartment here when pound was 13. There will soon be no lights too turn off in the UK..lol

http://di.se/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/fe...recession-fears

[kaze]

Oh god, what a day to have to pay my rent.

[In a Past Life]

Man them are mighty expensive cucumbers!!

Tell you what...buy them from over here in the UK and ship them in and they'd still be cheaper I think...

Just saw a whole cucumber for 98p in Tesco a second ago, so that's 49p for a half one which is about SEK 5.40

I know...I'm sad...

[Essingen]

Man them are mighty expensive cucumbers!!

They are indeed. I might add that I don't buy them at that price but look around for cheaper ones. So I am a sad case too.

[La]

I am always completely confused with all this financial stuff, strong currencies etc etc. We have a loan to pay off in Euros (from Ireland), and have both Swedish (SEK) and UK (sterling) accounts we could use. Anyone have any advice as to which currency would be better value to use to pay it off?

[Essingen]

La - it is difficult to give a definitive answer to this without knowing a bit more about your circumstances. However, if you are living in Sweden and intend to do so, and assuming that you can afford to do so it probably makes sense to pay off the EUR loan. The only argument against doing so is that it is quite feasible that the EUR will continue to fall in value, particularly against the SEK. If one believes that this will happen then you could argue that you should wait as you will have to give less SEK to pay off your EUR.

However, you say that you also have spare GBP that you can use. If you have no connection with the UK or plans to move back there, there is little point in having these funds. GBP is a risky currency just now and the markets don't like risk now. So my recommendation would be to use the GBP to pay off the EUR loan. If you don't have enough, pay off the balance with SEK.

[VikingHumpingWitch]

Things are looking up a bit for the UK economy:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/fe...owth-revised-up

and the IMF thinks that the government's handling of the economy is the way to go:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/fe...ach-to-spending

Not that I'm any fan of NuLabour cos I'm not, but for a plethora of other reasons.

As to what's the most useless thing you can buy in Sweden with a British pound, I nominate "almost an entire Mars bar from Pressbyrån" (currently 13 SEK, I believe).

[Localer]

you can get it to public toilet with 1 gbp

[captainbirdseye]

How low can it go? Thinking about transfering some money to my UK account for spending money and student loans. I wondering if i should transfer now or wait to see if it goes lower.

[Essingen]

How low can it go?

Well if I knew that I could be a wealthy man. However, the IMP applauds the fact that the UK isn't actually cuting its hudge budget deficit, because to do so would make things worse. That's fine, but the currency markets may well not like it. In fact at the time of writing this the rate is down to 10.83.

At the moment, GBP is perceived as being a risky currency,

[Jive Turkey Daddy]

I watched it drop to 10.83 on XE today...

No grumbles from here...lets see it drop to 1 to 1! I'll buy up Greenwich!

[wendist]

As I understand it Sweden can´t devaluate anything. The value of the swedish krona is set by the markets and some of the biggest financial players are based in London.

So it really is all your own fault.

[Brtahan]

I hope even one day kronor becomes even higher then euro and pounds and specialy dollars , because its the cause of world crisis , even that USA is making lots of profit just from exchanges , if you want to buy anything its converted to US and then converted to the local currency. Why countries are happy with this i dont knw , adopt euro as the trading currency and see how dollar will become like zimbabwe dollar worthless. So that means other countries all over the world are paying america indirectly for nothing.

[Lt. Gonville Bromhead]

That makes no sense to me and I work in the finance industry now.

The dollar isn't the cause of the finanicial crisis and the financial exchanges are owned effectively by shareholders, not the government.

What do you mean by if you buy anything it is converted into dollars first?

Regarding adopting the euro - you read the news recently regarding the Southern countries that are components of the currency.