Ask MetaFilter posts tagged with currency

Exchanging £s Sterling to Yen / Getting cash out in Japan

mairuzu — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 01:12:17 -0800

I'm going to Japan (from the UK) and want to arrange my cash for out there - I don't want to go down the traditional credit card route as they seem to sting you for allsorts of fees nowadays. 2 parts to this question: 1. Where would I get the better deal / exchange rate for changing my Sterling to Yen? In the UK before I go, or in Japan once I'm there? 2. (This one is very specific to a UK Bank) Does anyone know if a Nationwide Flex / current account Visa card will work in many cash machines in Japan? Any help gratefully received.

Why is there a | in $?

jepler — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 07:31:34 -0800

Why do so many currency symbols contain a vertical or horizontal slash? Half or more of the circulating currencies listed on wikipedia have a slash in them, including dollar (and cent), euro and yen. Is this a real convention or just coincidence? When and why did the convention arise?

Small, marked bills

tizzie — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 10:06:24 -0800

I keep seeing store clerks drawing marks on $20 and $50 bills before closing the cash register. Why are they doing it?

How do I reliably detect counterfeit currency?

yeoz — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 13:53:27 -0800

How do I reliably detect counterfeit currency? My mom lent a neighbor a very large sum of money last week, and she was paid back a few days later. She's concerned (because of how quickly it was paid back) that the money might be counterfeit. (The bills are a mix of new-design and old-design $50s and $100s.) How would we go about checking if the money is genuine or counterfeit? I've heard that those counterfeit checking pens are worthless. Would buying a random-off-the-shelf black light and using that to check if the money glows a different color work? Would that work for the old bills as well? Are there any other methods we could look into?

Vn Dong: Blackmarket rate website?

sydney54 — Thu, 29 May 2008 03:30:42 -0800

Vietnam: Website for Black market Dong Rate? Looking for a website or similar giving me an up to date unofficial rate for the Vietnamese Dong.

how to beat the bank?

mary8nne — Wed, 07 May 2008 02:45:26 -0800

How can individuals have the greatest impact in weakening or destabilising a particular country economically? Do consumer boycots of all country X products have any significant impact? What alternatives are there? Currency market manipulation perhaps? Inspire investors to pull out of a country?

but if the target country is relatively strong economically, such as say the USA, is there any way a grass roots type movement can have an impact?

finance proz

goldism — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 09:12:53 -0800

Short-term investments question: In your opinion, what stable foreign currency should I invest my money? I am new to investing and was looking for some other opinions\ideas on which currency to convert my money into today and convert back to the US dollar, in say...6 months.

Best way to replace a torn Canadian $20 bill?

chudmonkey — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 16:25:03 -0800

Where can I find guidelines for the usability of torn/ripped Canadian currency? What should I do with this specific $20 bill? I got a torn $20 from an ATM. I called the ATM company and I have the option of mailing them the bill and getting a credit. But I'm wondering if that's my only option. I don't mind standing in line at a local bank to get a replacement bill, but I don't want to stand in line at a bank to find out if I can get one or not.

Here's the specific bill I got. You can see it's missing about 20% of its width.

I have to say I'm stymied trying to answer this for myself using the 'net. I can't find any Canadian government/bank guidelines and the only reference I have is a 15-year-old memory of a Street Cents episode that seemed to indicate that banks will exchange torn currency for a percentage value based on remaining surface area. A friend is insistent that if the bill has both serial numbers, it's still usable, but my friend has no expertise or reliable knowledge of this topic.

You help will be greatly appreciated.

Dear Apple: For the Last Damn Time, Not Everyone Has Always-On Internet.

lorimer — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 02:21:11 -0800

For the default Calculator app in Mac OS, how do I permanently disable the behavior that results in the "unable to update currency exchange rates" warning at startup? I recently ran Software Update on my Mac, so it's now running OS 10.4.11. This update came with a very unwelcome (to me) "improvement" in the basic system application Calculator. Calculator apparently now tries to connect to the internet every time it starts, in order to get currency conversion rates (!?). I am not online most of the time. This means any time I start Calculator, this obnoxious dialog box pops up telling me the app was "unable to update currency exchange rates."

Even if I use Little Snitch to tell Calculator it's never allowed to connect to the internet, this doesn't fix the problem that every time Calculator starts it will give me that stupid "unable to update" dialog box that I have to click OK on before I can even add two numbers together. To me, the point of Calculator is to start immediately and be dead simple.

Please tell me there's a way to disable this new feature. If there's not, what is a tiny, free, third party calculator app for Mac OS? (I can't believe I'd have to install a third party app for something as simple as a calculator, but I will if I have to. I don't need anything but the most basic functions.)

Questions about tranferring money overseas

gfrobe — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 06:39:56 -0800

Need to transfer a large amount of money from US to UK and have a few questions about currency brokers and taxes. I'm going to be transferring 100k from a US savings account to a UK saving account and want to be sure I get the best exchange rate. Should I use a currency broker for this rather than my regular bank? If so, can anyone recommend a good reputable broker?

Also, what are the tax consequences of a transfer like this? Will I have to pay UK taxes on the money I'm bringing into the UK?

Sending a check internationally.

comiddle — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 11:37:46 -0800

Does the country in which a cheque is cashed have any basis on which currency is used? I'm sending a cheque from Canada to France. When it's cashed, is it Euros or dollars? Can I specify on the cheque that I want it to be cashed in Euros?

It's too small an amount for me to bother with a money order (and it's nippy out), but a book that I feel I must acquire.

Regards,
- Doesn't write a lot of cheques.

Where's my cyberdollars?

greytape — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 10:39:42 -0800

Will a online, untraceable, virtual currency reshape the world as we know it? And if so, why hasn't it happened yet? I firtst learnt about virtual currencies through Neal Stephenson novels. In 'Cryptomonicon' our heros are searching for a colossal amount of gold to use as collateral for starting such a currency. Then in 'The Diamond Age' it is mentioned that it was the use of such an untraceable currency that destroyed the nation state as it meant governments could no longer collect taxes. Exciting stuff.

However, I've since spent a bit of time googling the issue, and have discovered that while currencies like this do already exist, they haven't taken the world by storm. Has Stephenson's idea of virtual money changing the world simply been proven false, or are we still waiting for some technological piece in the puzzle? And what would be the advantages to such a currency anyway?

Is there a website that has graphs of stock price in non-quoted currency

caek — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 02:23:53 -0800

Is there a finance website that can plot historical and current graphs of a stock price in a currency other than that of its local exchange, e.g. the stock price of IBM in USD multiplied by the (moving, not current!) EUR:USD exchange rate? If this is easy to do on Google or Yahoo Finance then I'm obviously missing something!

How do I assess the value of old money?

andythebean — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 13:48:37 -0800

How do I assess the value of old money? How much would five pounds sterling in 1649 be in today's dollars? Is there a site for this sort of thing?

Dollars for Moldovanians!

greytape — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 09:02:19 -0800

Why don't small countries use the dollar or the euro in place of their own currency? So I'm the President of Moldovania, a small, poor, corrupt country located somewhere in Africa/Latin America/Central Asia. We have trouble with inflation and would like to make international business easier, so I hit upon the idea of scrapping the national currency and using another major currency in its place.
Why do my economic advisors tell me this is a stupid idea? Is it because this would piss off the US/EU, and be in some way illegal, or would the move simply be suicidal in terms of abandoning control of my own economy? Has it ever been tried?

Six-figure prices

pravit — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 23:13:07 -0800

If everything costs some multiple of 1000 won in South Korea, why don't they just redenominate the currency? Most things in Korea seem to be priced in multiples of 1000 won - if I remember right, a subway ticket costs 1000, an average lunch 5000, etc.

Given that almost all of their prices are in multiples of 1000, why don't they just introduce a new won that equals one thousand old won, and be done with having to say "thousand" after every price, or having household appliances that are worth millions of won?

I have the same question about the Japanese yen, but in hundreds instead of thousands.

Is this a matter of tradition, a cultural thing, or something that would be a pain in the ass to implement but provide little real benefit (like renaming streets, for instance)? Or some combination of the above?

How can I quickly compare prices of common items here in the states vs. in various foreign countries?

J-Garr — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 10:28:33 -0800

How can I quickly compare prices of common items here in the states vs. in various foreign countries? I've looked at cost of living sites and read numerous euro vs dollar articles but nothing fits what I was hoping to find.

I know that in Portland Oregon a pint of beer will cost somewhere between $2-$8. $2 being a great happy hour and $8 being full price at a more expensive restaurant. What I want to know is what is the price range for the same item in Frankfurt or Toyko or London? It would be great if the same site would give me the comparison: The Euro is currently worth about $1.50 so a $5 beer in Portland would cost $13 in Munich (or whatever/wherever).

Does that site exist?

a) HTML annotation via footnote/link back; b) 19th-century exchange/inflation-adjusted rates

DevilsAdvocate — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 08:45:08 -0800

Posted for sushiwiththejury: I have to annotate some texts from the 19th century. The final product must be an HTML-only webpage. I have two major issues: 1. I'm working through the texts from start to finish, i.e, when I come across a word/proper noun/etc to annotate, I do so and move on (by annotate I mean link to a footnote/web resource). For every word/text that I annotate, I insert an anchor (to linkback) and a link to the resource.

The problem with this: updating the anchors later on will be a major headache, because I'm positive I'll come up with many more links as I go through multiple readings of the texts.

Is there a simpler solution?

2. Is there a resource for converting various 19th century European/American/African currencies to current inflation-adjusted values?

I've seen some of the annotation software out there, and it isn't what I want.

I'm on Ubuntu using Mozilla Composer, could use Windows if needed.

(via)

Is there such a thing as a currency-neutral measure of prices?

Nelson — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 10:03:08 -0800

Is there such a thing as a currency-neutral measure of the price of a commodity? The price of oil has gone way up in dollars. But the dollar is also way down against other world currencies. I'm looking for a graph that shows the price of oil in a way that's currency neutral. Ie, a graph that filters out the fluctuations in the US dollar. I'm not just interested in oil, really what I want is to translate dollars to "world currency" for a variety of things.

Naively I think you could do this by creating a virtual currency, an average of various world currencies weighted by the currency's economic influence. Ie: "30% USD, 20% EUR, 20% CNY, ..." But I'm not an economist and I'm not sure what I'm asking for even makes sense.

I did find a set of graphs of oil prices in various currencies, including vs. gold. The comments include a discussion about exactly what I'm asking for, with inconclusive results. The most interesting was a suggestion to look at oil vs. the CRB index. I don't really understand the CRB index, but what I do understand suggests it's not the right thing to normalize against.

[forex filter] Who knows how many euros one dollar will buy next summer? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller??

deejay jaydee — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 09:36:08 -0800

What do currency speculators think the euro-dollar exchange rate will be in June 2008? Are there online sources that currency speculators use to project or predict exchange futures? Can non-traders see these sources? Am I asking for something that just doesn't exist??? I've seen at least a couple of folks here on the green express some expertise in foreign exchange and currency trading. And I'm not interested in engaging in such trades, but I do have a professional opportunity to travel to Europe next summer, and in order to put together the most iron-clad proposal for funding from my boss, I kind of need to know what currency traders *think* the dollar-euro exchange rate is likely to be in June 2008. (I work at a well-funded, but appropriately tight-fisted NFP.)

Now, I know that the actual, honest answer is "who in the f@ck knows?! (and now geddoff my lawn!!)" But at the same time, I can't believe that currency speculators simply guess at this stuff . . . they must base their predictions on some sort of data. (Mustn't they? Eek.) Is this data privately held? Does it result from ungodly derivatives and financial models only slightly less complex than your average Rube Goldberg machine? Or is there some sort of secret website run by the Trilateral Commission? (Who, of course, must preordain these sorts of things [responsibly, of course]. Oh, and btw, if there is such a TLC site, can you send me an invite via MeFi Mail? We'll be BFF! I promise!!!)

But to return to the serious side of my question, I found lots of discussion on how to make/lose a ton of money in forex by searching the green (and the internets) . . . but I didn't see anybody talking about sources for the data that trader and speculators base their assumptions or predictions on. Can a simple, honest, international traveler get a bead on where the euro is likely to be in June 2008?

I'm sure this is one of these impossible questions . . . but it can't be most stupidly impossible question asked here today . . . can it?? I mean, I know if there were an ironclad site for this stuff, then everybody in the world would be using it and making jillions of dollars trading currencies. And I also know that YANMFA, and that MMWV, and all of the other acronyms that we use here in lieu of "watch your six." But at the same time, is it really the case that currency speculators base all of their models simply by following financial headlines? There isn't some sort of predictive market for this field? One that I can peek at??

Bonus points for anyone who can explain currency futures to a total financial numbskull (like myself).

How can I protect myself against the falling US dollar when sending work overseas?

lsemel — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 05:16:41 -0800

How can I protect myself against the falling US dollar when sending work overseas? As part of my business I outsource web design and programming projects to overseas vendors in various countries. With the falling US dollar, I've recently had a project increase in cost between the time the project was initiated and the time when it was completed, and I want this to not happen again.

The duration between starting the project and completion is usually several months. I currently pay vendors through PayPal, or through the outsourcing site itself for countries that PayPal doesn't serve.

I want to ensure that from now on, whatever I budget for a project, that's what I actually end up paying. Is there a way I could go about doing this?

Saving money in euros...

Afroblanco — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 11:49:23 -0800

I keep all my savings in a Citibank e-savings account, which is like a regular savings account, only with a higher interest rate. Recently, the dollar has totally been tanking, and this trend doesn't show any signs of reversing. What's the easiest, safest, most profitable way for me to save my money in euros instead of dollars? This is what I like about the e-savings account :

1) My money is FDIC insured.
2) The interest rate is higher than that of a typical savings account. It's somewhere around 4.25%.
3) I can take my money out any time I want without incurring any kind of penalty.
4) It's ultra-low-maintenance - I can just put my money in and forget about it.

I would like to put my money in euros without sacrificing any of the above, if possible. I know that I won't be able to find something that's FDIC insured, but I would like something that has a similar degree of security.

The fact of the matter is that the dollar is totally tanking, and I don't want to see my life's savings evaporate because of inflation or anything else that I don't really understand.

Post war Dinar value

sock it to me monkey — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 17:23:11 -0800

DinarFilter: I want to know how much money, in US dollars, 50,000 Serbian Dinar was......in 1946.

How can I turn a buck on the dollar's woes?

paul_smatatoes — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 12:25:36 -0800

Can your average person who spends their entire workday in front of a computer short the dollar online, through some sort of investing site? I'm macroeconomically literate, but know next to nothing about what sort of options are available for playing with my money. I read about day-trading Japanese moms making money on the currency trade, and I'd like to keep my relatively meager savings from vanishing into some Weimarish wheelbarrow-of-bills traffic jam, so...do I need to learn Japanese to do it?

How to compare currencies' subjective value?

nobody — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 14:30:09 -0800

I understand that trading between currencies is what sets their exchange value, but is there a standard way of determining how each currency feels to people living in each currency's native country/ies? This may have been asked here recently, but I couldn't find it. In case it's not clear what I'm asking, an example would be whether a pound feels twice as valuable to someone living in London as a dollar feels to someone living in New York (assuming neither travels outside their home city). My guess would be that a pound in London feels more valuable than a dollar in New York, but not twice as valuable. And my guess is that a Euro to a Berliner feels about equal to a dollar to a New Yorker, but is there a way to quantify the comparative subjective value? Are there conversion tables for this like there are for exchange rates? Is there something economically significant about a discrepancy between two currencies' exchange value and the comparison of those two currencies' felt, local values?