For all of those VJers that are iminantly about to move across to the US, the exchange rate for the British Pound against the US Dollar hit a 30 year high today. It is currently sitting at $2.04 to £1.00, time to get that money sent across to the US and take advantage.

For those that have to send cash back for UK responsibilities, comiserations it wants to go the other way.

yeah I was thinking about this too - i'm still waiting for my interview date and probably won't be moving until October but now seems like a good time to send some money over - anyone with financial know how out there who can offer some predictions on whether the rate is likely to fall or continue rising in the next few months?

WHOO my fiance is moving over in 12 days (not that I'm counting). I hope the rates hold!

Shocking really. I'm just happy that when I first moved over here I had nothing but debt in the UK and not a penny to my name. Back then the exchange rate was $1.40 to a pound! Made paying off the student loans a lot easier I can tell you. I pity people who did what I did back then today.

It's difficult to say - the sub-prime worries are weakening the dollar and some are predicting it might slide further.

With regards to what the doctor said - If I had extra pounds, I'd be paying back UK debts now with them instead of trrying to do so with dollars in the future!

In the Economist a few weeks back, they predicted it would hold fairly steady (not necessarily over $2 to the pound) through the year.

Its a toughie, it's not a good time to change back to pounds but what do you do wait and see or gamble that it will get worse before it gets better?????

It was steady for so long at around 1.5 - 1.7 I would think it will revert back to somewhere near that within six months but if Wall Street and the UK Stock Exchange can't predict it who am I to try

The strong pound is hurting the UK more than the weak dollar is hurting us. It makes
UK firms less competitive in US markets, and devalues the value of dollar earnings
made here. I'm sure the Bank of England is going to do something about it soon.

I agree that it is making it unattractive to deal in Dollars for UK companies, but that is a double edge sword. Although UK companies are forced to work at $2+ to the pound, rest assured they will not adjust their prices when it does drop. So taking a slightly longer view they stand to profit or recoup some of their reduced margins, when it does drop.

I dont agree however on the BoE bit, I think the BoE are more concerned with getting our own inflation down to 2% than the exchange rate. I would think that if the BoE are doing anything right now, it will be buying as much greenback as it can. As I said a good time to buy dollars.

That quarter point interest rate rise they've been talking about before the end of the year won't help.

It happened last week....... again! Apparently there are now 500,000 people defaulting on their mortgage payments.

My fiance has been saving up quite a bit of money for his move over here. I'm hoping it stays at that exchange rate for his sake! Though I am not very much looking forward to watching my money disappear when I go over for his interview!