$100 won't be enough for the below, but this is what I'm doing to protect myself from currency risk with a portion of my money: 1 - 2 parts gold or gold stocks, which will over the long term at least match USD inflation. 2 - 1 part <a href="http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=DBV" target="[">DBV</a>, an idea I got from Eric Bolling on Fast Money a few weeks ago. It goes long high yielding currencies and short low-yielding ones. Kind of an instant carry trade. The index behind it has a good long term record: see <a href="http://www.thestreet.com/markets/currency/10311033.html" target="]">ETF Takes Long/Short Approach on Currencies</a>
go buy 800 shares of LYJN its a penny stock and I know we don't talk about pennies here but it will be the next true religion jeans, your money will be worth 50 times what it is today
Delirious- You speak of cycles and I agree with you on that. So with that premise you can't just buy and hold. You need to realize and this goes for all of our USD, yes I have a good sum in the bank, that we need to find trading ranges and buy the currencies that look good now when they are cheap. For instance, I am kicking myself for not buying Euros when the EU would ratify the constitution over a year ago. I believe Euro was 1.20 ish, that was a discount and didn't stay there long. Their fundamentals just look much better than good ol' USA for the next 10 year IMO. Europeans pay cash or atleast don't buy alot of stuff without thinking about how long it will take to pay. The exception, from what I have read and heard, are the English. Is this all worth it for $100, no of course not. But now we are looking at your net worth too, and then it becomes worth it to find the ranges on chart and consider buying currencies that should fundamentally appreciate when they trade at a discount. I like Bob's idea of buying gold, but looking at a daily chart, it looks like it is heading down to me. I would consider loading the boat at $500ish gold. I know that's a long winded answer to a simple question, but hopefully you see the value.
Congrats on the new daughter. If you only have $100 you will lose $3 per month for just keeping it in your savings account as fees..... in 34 months you will have a negative balance. Why not put it and about $2000/yr in a ROTH IRA and let it grow to something worthwhile? Regardless of the currency, the value will be what it will be when your daughter goes to college. Just make sure you have plenty of whatever it is you are saving. Good luck, spend every minute you can with your new daughter. Time will fly by and you don't want to miss any of it. My daughter turned 2 in MAY. Wow, how quickly they do change.
Delirious I wouldn't get too excited about things. At the end of WWII, the national debt to GDP was something like 140%-150%. Today, it is half that. The US ranks 10th or 11th of the 27 OECD countries in terms of relative indebtedness. That doesn't mean the dollar won't devalue against other currencies. Rather, it isn't going to collapse and take the economy with it.
Open a Forex account ... not margin ... just regular ... for every 100$ you put into it buy different currencies