Threw in the towel

Discussion in 'Trading' started by palenimbus, Oct 26, 2007.

  1. As a european that elusively trades US index futures I've always had my money in US Dollars in my IB account. I always thought it would be better for me to keep my money in dollars so that my purchasing power of USD securities remains constant despite the fluctuations in the exchange rate. On the other hand, if I converted all my currency to Euros there was the risk that if the Euro were to fall it would affect my margins.

    But early this morning, after watching the Euro stake out a new all-time high I decided that the risk of the euro falling significantly is worth the relief of not having to worry about my actual purchasing power (I live in europe) getting whittled away and I converted my entire account into Euros, I hope actions like this don't mark the bottom of the dollar's multi year slide :)
     
  2. kashirin

    kashirin

    congratultions!
    I'm from Canada and I converted my entire account into Canadian dollars a month ago
    And since that I immediately convert all my profits
    I hope all overseas traders will dump all their US$ holdings
     
  3. I've always kept all my mine in GBP.
     
  4. Cutten

    Cutten

    What price did you initially go long dollars?

    For someone living in the Eurozone, being long dollars is a trading position, whereas long Euros is a flat position. The first has major risk - if the dollar falls 30%, you lose 30% of your account. If the Euro fell 30%, most of your living costs would stay the same, so your net purchasing power would not be too badly affected - thus your actual risk if you'd stayed long Euros would be minimal.
     
  5. I opened my IB account back in 2002 I believe, can't really remember. But I opened the account in dollars so I had an effective exchange rate of 1.2 or something back then.

    I have never actually withdrawn a cent from my IB account since I have opened it because I have other sources of income.

    I hear what you're saying cutton, but I've always had positions opened, using margin, also I figured that if my account is in Euros IB would have to convert a part of that to dollars to satisfy opening and maintenance margin requirements for US futures. To be honest I still don't know how it works regarding that, guess i'll have to check it out.
     
  6. Daal

    Daal

    trading US markets without hedging is suicidal
     
  7. US markets sucks balls!

    [​IMG]