Malaysian Ringitt

[redbarn]

I am curious if any of you are watching the Malaysian Ringitt.  The conversion rate this morning is 1 USD=3.91 MYR. 
If the rate reaches 4.0 do you think it is a good investment to convert  US Dollars and hope the Ringitt will come back to around the 3.3-3.5 mark?   If nothing else it would give us more spending money when we go for the summer to Malaysia next year.

[JoeyCapital]

Currencies and commodities are both markets that you need knowledge and experience to trade, IMO. Too many things influence those markets to make it something you can fully grasp and understand without putting a lot of hours in. Of course, if you're just talking about play money then rock n roll.


If you are going to convert some dollars make sure that it won't hurt your finances too bad if the trade gets away from you. You can get into some pretty serious volatility, and if I remember right the currency market has trading pretty much 24 hrs a day. That means you will be asleep while the markets are moving, so unless you have a stop in place you're in that sucker.

Always remember as you're looking at investments- no matter how sure a thing it looks, the risk will always be roughly equal to the projected return. If you're analyzing something that looks like it could make a good profit there's either a good amount of risk involved or it's a scam of some sort. At the end of the day that's what the profit from investing is, compensation for assuming the risk of someone's business venture. The higher the risk level, the higher the return has to be to incentivize people to invest.

Sorry for the dissertation.

[aristotle]

The dollar has taken a hit the last couple of days due to China's devaluation of the yuan and the assumption that this may stall a Fed rate hike. That being said, short the dollar at your own risk. I trade currencies on margin; but I don't touch exotic pairings like this. Usually the bid/ask spread and the margin requirements are way too high to make it worthwhile. But if you are going physically going there and want to exchange your currency on the notion that the dollar will depreciate in the coming weeks, I have no advice to offer. All in all, a good time to exchange dollars for travel abroad I guess.

[redbarn]

We did go ahead and change 3050USD for 11,975MYR at the rate of 4.0MYR for 1USD minus 50.00 bank fee for wire transfer and 1 percent bank charge for conversion in Malaysia.  We will be traveling there for the summer next year so this compares to the 3000 USD for 9,450MYR we got last year when the rate was 3.2MYR to 1USD.  Not sure if that is good or bad but gives a little more spending money while we are there at our home in Sabah, Malaysia. 

[aristotle]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-08-14/malaysia-s-ringgit-tumbles-to-weakest-since-1998-as-oil-retreats


If you aren't going until next summer, you are bucking a dangerous trend, sir. With China's growth in question and surprise devaluations of its currency, this chart trend could continue.