USD falling concerns

[earwax]

Wednesday February 7, 2007: Ringgit breaches 3.50 mark (http://biz.thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2007/2/7/business/16804220&sec=business)

 

Falling USD is bad for us right?

For those that work in rubber/palm oil estate, if USD fall 10% then ur selling price just dropped 10%

For those that work in company outsourced by US, if USD fall 10%, then your costs to them just went up 10%

This is very dangerous for you and bad for the Malaysia economy... it is your responsibility to make the USD go up again!!! You need to buy more imported things like Nike and Louis Vuitton...

[julez.lim]

For those fella whose have stock options in US... HAHAHA

There's pros and cons to this. US people will view our products more expensive with weakening of dollar. But, hey, can we stop benchmarking USD and look to other currency like SGD, Euro and Pound?

Working in a production and services (like consultancy) type of environment before, Ringgit breachign the Rm3.50 mark would impact on production side more than services. Just my opinion...

[julez.lim]

At around 1980, RM to SGD is bout 1.0 to 1.2 (if not mistaken, hey yet to be born)
In early 1990s, I can still remember it being 1.5 to 1.8 range
Now, it's 2.8

Sigh..

[Madmatt]

Well for me, there is pros and cons. the good thing is that i can buy stuffs from US at a cheaper rate now and also buy adwords advertising cheaper. The con is that I earn less when converting US to RM. Oh well, give and take situation.

At the moment I'm buying a lot of stuffs like crazy in USD. when or if it goes up, I will make a bundle by selling what I've bought.

[earwax]

For those fella whose have stock options in US... HAHAHA

There's pros and cons to this. US people will view our products more expensive with weakening of dollar. But, hey, can we stop benchmarking USD and look to other currency like SGD, Euro and Pound?

Working in a production and services (like consultancy) type of environment before, Ringgit breachign the Rm3.50 mark would impact on production side more than services. Just my opinion...

You are right, production is very senstive to currency change. I know many engineers who are tearing their hair out because they are told to cut costs year after year, typically by abt 6-12%.

So even a small % increase can cause a lot of damage.

Poor engineers... 

[julez.lim]

Learning about forex is very interesting... I agree with what you guys say.

Let me share with you something called Big Mac Index. Yup, the McDonald's Big Mac. You see different countries price Big Mac differently. Ideally all Big Macs should be priced the same. For example, if Big Mac is USD1 in US, Malaysia's should be RM3.50. Of course, this is not happening.
So, from there, the difference can signal whether a currency is undervalued or overvalued to cut the topic short

Here's the link: http://www.economist.com/markets/indicators/displaystory.cfm?story_id=8649005

[penang_lim]

Today, Japanese Yen rises against USD.  Japanese bond also rises.  Could that be the reason why today's CI dropped of 50+ points?  Could Technical analysis help?

[booleanx]

some side notice, private money changer do not accept us dollar bill printed before 1997

[DenLee]

It should be Yen rising concern instead of USD falling concern.

Due to the fact that the softening of Yen at the end of 2006 triggered buying spree by hedge funds managers.  These 'hot money' coming out from Japan was trillions in values.  These hot money chases the highest returns in world market and resulted in recent Malaysian Bull run in Feb.

Due to the rise of Yen, the fund managers have to exit some counters to balanced up their margin borrowing.  So, beware of Yen right now...not USD...