Anyone read "inside the house of money" by Drobny - interesting trades were placed a few years ago that were based on the "risk free" higher returns provided in Iceland- apparently its all blown up now. One of the hedge fund managers interviewed in that book was a director in a major icelandic bank at the time. Obviously he was promoting the carry on the trade...
The point is that you cannot trade ISK as there is no market. The quote from CMC is not real. From Bloomberg 10/14/08: "There was no trading yesterday in Iceland's krona by foreign banks and the price of the currency remains ``undetermined,'' Beat Siegenthaler, chief strategist for emerging markets at TD Securities Ltd. in London, wrote in a note today. The currency's bid/ask spread, the price at which traders are willing to buy and sell, was 300/450 per euro on Oct. 10, according to TD Securities."
lol, you're right it's not a tradeable quote, I wonder how many people phoned CMC dealers asking I'd be surprised if anyone is quoting ISK, Iceland's been frozen out!
Here is an update as of EOD 10/17/08: ISK trading at 2 different values that are far apart. "Having been untraded for days after it collapsed, Iceland's crown is moving towards a dual exchange rate with the central bank selling foreign currency to locals much cheaper than the international market rate. Iceland's government took control of its banking system last week and has since imposed harsh foreign exchange controls, holding an auction every day to set the value of the crown. Friday's fix valued it at 151 to â¬1 and 112.69 to the dollar, slightly weaker than yesterday's levels. But the Reuters matching dealing system showed the crown at almost half that value in international trade at 275 to the euro."