The ZH article was basically saying Australia was heading towards Greece's fate Don't believe it but an interesting read, especially the comments section. ZH doesn't usually cover Oz much so worth a look. Other comment of note:
+1 HSBC I have established USD account when AUD was 0.82 ... You can instantly exchange AUD to USD at live rate with only about 1 cent being taken of the buy/sell. In terms of assets HSBC Holdings comes at 3rd position in the World makes me trust them more than any other Australian banks. Commonwealth is just passing on all the fees associated with their extensive branch numbers to its customers. Not long ago many investors had suffered financial loss due to financial planners at CBA... HSBC worked for me well but everyone is free to trust and take their business to any bank they think serves them best. Knowing that all wars are bankers wars one isnt much better than the other
So what is the difference/advantages/disadvantages between using a bank account with HSBC or whatever to buy and sell USD compared to an ETF on the ASX such as Betashares?
The ETF is cheaper, however has the following risks. With HSBC you are able to move your money and covert at any time, unlike the ETF which will only allow you to cash out during ASX market hours. Also with the ETF you must be careful of liquidity. In case of a market crash you may be hoping for the USD ETF to boom and then sell out, however with a spooked market you may find there are not enough buyers or nobody will buy your ETFs because the price has gone too high. I think other low cost ETFs are very good but only for long term compound investing, not when markets are crashing. You won't find buyers in these markets, the volumes are too low.
I'm using CurrencyFair http://www.curencyfair.com/ The rates are pretty darn good, and bank transfer to/from takes a day or two. Not instant, but that doesn't bother me. You can use any Bank USD account to store it, and avoid paying the horrible bank rates. So I go Bank AUD account --> CurencyFair temp holding account --> Bank USD account. And vice-versa.
That's an interesting point made about the fact that even though the average wage is $65k it's only US $45k since our dollar has crashed. Considering American homes are 1/3 if the price of ours it doesn't look so great anymore.
The fall continues. I expect more negative business and economic news in coming weeks and months matched by increasingly desperate government spin. There's nowhere to go but down.
HSBC set to follow Barclays and RBS in setting aside cash to cover gigantic fine for rigging foreign currency rates http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/...ing-foreign-currency-rates.html#ixzz3kpwlkz7P
Thursday 11 December 2014 HSBC currency chief out after forex rigging scandal "Forex fixing was the latest in a long line of scandals to embarrass a tainted industry since the financial crisis including the manipulation of interbank lending rates and gold prices as well as mis-selling of payment protection insurance." "The regulators published lurid details ..... as they worked together to rig the values of major currency rates in order to boost their profits." read more at http://www.independent.co.uk/news/b...-out-after-forex-rigging-scandal-9916944.html my emphasis in bold
I still think we could see the AUD fall below 70c, especially after seeing the government in total denial with yesterday's MYEFO and its failure to admit that token expenditure reductions wont address (or even meaningfully offset) the underlying problem of a decline in GDP growth and falling revenue which are leading to forcasts of a growing defecit.
