{"id":283,"date":"2010-08-31T07:07:27","date_gmt":"2010-08-31T07:07:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saints-hosting.org.uk\/sadfish\/visitgalicia\/?p=283"},"modified":"2010-08-31T17:26:41","modified_gmt":"2010-08-31T17:26:41","slug":"the-amateur-economist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.visitgalicia.co.uk\/?p=283","title":{"rendered":"The amateur economist"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I never thought I&#8217;d turn into a market watcher let alone a market predictor but buying a property in Spain has come close to seeing me pull on the red braces and pin-stripe suit, and aspiring\u00a0to nip to the nearest\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.porsche.com\/\">Porsche<\/a> dealership.<\/p>\n<p>When you are shopping about for holiday money you try and find yourself a decent rate but resign yourself to the fact that currency markets fluctuate and at the end of the day it only makes a few quid difference. When you are talking about buying tens of thousands of Euros then the slightest fluctuation can make a big difference.<\/p>\n<p>The difference between securing an exchange rate of 1,10 \u20ac and 1,20 \u20ac to the pound\u00a0is the difference between getting 11.000 and 12.000 \u20ac per \u00a310,000. All of a sudden\u00a0this realisation\u00a0turns into a market watching hawk, scouring the daily news for stories which may effect the following days trends, installing the <a href=\"javascript:popUpWindow('\/news\/business\/market_data\/ticker\/markets\/default.stm','popUpWindow', 'toolbar=0,scrollbars=0,location=0,statusbar=0,menubar=0,directories=no,resizable=0,width=450,height=557,left=300,top=100')\">BBC&#8217;s market ticker<\/a> on your laptop, reading the <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.currenciesdirect.net\/\">currency exchange blogs<\/a>, and trying to hit the market at its peak to maximise your cash.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_284\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.visitgalicia.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/08\/EuroRateYear.jpg\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-284\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-284\" title=\"EuroRateYear\" src=\"http:\/\/www.visitgalicia.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/08\/EuroRateYear-300x100.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"100\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.visitgalicia.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/08\/EuroRateYear-300x100.jpg 300w, http:\/\/www.visitgalicia.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/08\/EuroRateYear.jpg 636w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-284\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">As dangerous as mountain climbing<\/p><\/div>\n<p>What you also need to do is lift yourself out of the tourist rate equation and get something a bit closer to the inter-bank rate &#8211; the headline rate which gets published in the newspapers, but you never get anywhere near at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thomascookegypt.com\/financial\/FXCurrencyConverter.aspx\">Thomas Cook<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>We got ourself a currency consultant called Robert at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.foremostcurrencygroup.co.uk\/\">Foremost Currency Group <\/a>and after extensive discussions we settled on a target of 1,135 \u20ac to the pound, at a time when the inter-bank rate was around 1,100 \u20ac. In the reservation contract we&#8217;d agreed on 1,095 \u20ac so anything better than that and we were ahead.<\/p>\n<p>A couple of weeks later and the pound strengthened to a level where I got the call from Robert. We fixed the price at 1,1351 \u20ac and I was happy, we were 350 \u20ac per \u00a310,000 up on the reservation contract agreed exchange rate\u00a0. But\u00a0my joy\u00a0was short-lived. The pound continued to strengthen, despite my extensive research, and when we eventually went to\u00a0Galicia on the 21st June to complete the purchase the rate was 1,195 \u20ac, making economics yet another pastime to add to\u00a0the long list of disciplines at which I am a rank amateur.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I never thought I&#8217;d turn into a market watcher let alone a market predictor but buying a property in Spain has come close to seeing me pull on the red braces and pin-stripe suit, and aspiring\u00a0to nip to the nearest\u00a0Porsche &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.visitgalicia.co.uk\/?p=283\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,31],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.visitgalicia.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.visitgalicia.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.visitgalicia.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.visitgalicia.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.visitgalicia.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=283"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/www.visitgalicia.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":291,"href":"http:\/\/www.visitgalicia.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283\/revisions\/291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.visitgalicia.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.visitgalicia.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.visitgalicia.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}