Which currency is better for Poland and the Eurozone? Euro or Zloty?

Hi all, can anyone advise me about which currency is better? Should i convert my Euro into Zloty given the current situation in the Eurozone? I have money in a savings account in Poland but it's in Euro, not Zloty! I'm getting a little nervous as i'm afraid the Euro currency is on the verge of collapse!!! Please advise, Regards Skubus

thats the million dollar question..

I depends on what you think will happen with the debt problems in Europe.

Personally i think that zloty seems to be a little better for the next months.

But it is impossible to know for sure.

My biggest fear is that the Euro will loose all value and that the Germans,French etc will revert back to their own currencies and leave their bankrupted and bust neighbours i.e. the Irish, Greek and Portugese and possibly the Italian and Spanish out in the ecenomic wilderness with a currency worth nothing! My thinking is that maybe it would be better to convert my Euro into Zloty because i believe the Zloty will remain in circulation and become a strong trading tool within Europe because it is a country still with it's own currency, not solely dependant on the German and French banks

If the Euro weakens against other currencies, so will the PLN, Pl is n emerging market, if the sh1t hits the fan again then the best currency to have is USD just like in 2008, in my humble opinion.

Obviously the Swiss Franc is the best currency at the moment.

Would you exchange your Euro for CHF today, at these rates?

The Swiss franc has hit record highs against the euro and the dollar in recent weeks, and the Swiss National Bank has warned the Alpine economy could slow as a result of the currency's strength.

Business has called on the SNB to intervene in the currency markets to weaken the franc to around 1.35 to 1.40 per euro compared with its current level of around 1.15.

fair point

Thanks for all the feedback everyone. I'm not interested in entering the markets and doing any kind of trading. I just want to make sure my savings remain secure. I don't want to wake up some morning to hear reports that the Euro currency has totally collapsed and is worth nothing. If i thought this were going to happen then i would convert all into Zloty, at least then i would have something of value still left in my bank account. I realise if the Euro did go pop that it would effect the stability and worth of other currencies, but like i said the other currencies would still have some kind of value whereas the Euro would be worth zero!!

No it isn't. The US is a country led by lunatics with no grasp on reality, investors elsewhere are not encumbered by American dilutions.

CHF is where you want to be.

very true..

Peterweg, you are being emotional, not practical.

PW may have a point. I have heard from more than one source that a 1 to 1 EUR/CHF is feasible. It is gambling to do so, mind. Between Euro and Zloty I'd prefer Zloty if living there and to enjoy the interest.

yea, interesting, but how could this scenario possibly arise.

Ask the same question in a few months and there will be totally different answers

My tips :

33 % in EUR
33 % in CHF
33 % in USD

More on the expected disater looming over the EU and US, it is a pessimistic outlook to claim 1:1. The two havens would be Swissy and Yen, imo.

If you search you will find the view in many places over the past months, A typical article:

businessweek.com/news/2011-07-18/franc-is-most-expensive-currency-as-taylor-sees-euro-parity.html

Geoff Kendrick, head of European currency strategy at Nomura International Plc in London, raised his forecasts for the franc this month, partly because Swiss banks are increasing their assets denominated in the local currency. Nomura predicts the euro will buy 1.2 francs by year-end, from a prior estimate of 1.4 francs. An appreciation to 1.10 over the next three months "sounds reasonable and likely," Kendrick said.

"It's definitely possible that we could see parity reached this year if the euro crisis continues," he said.

"The franc will remain a strong currency for a very long time because the credit crisis in Europe isn't going away anytime soon," said Sebastien Galy, a senior foreign-exchange strategist at Societe Generale SA in London. "We are in a global crisis of growth and in that environment balance sheets that are clean are appealing. That's the case with Switzerland."

The euro has strengthend today but still appears as a retracement from thursday. May reach 1.1560 and then sink again from a technical perspective.

Skubus - are your savings short term or long term? If you already moved to Poland (checked your profile) and will need the money within let's say 2-3 years, then Złoy makes sense as you shouldn't be risking an emergency fund to currency fluctuation.

If you won't need the money for 3+ years I'd say diversify, use some in Euros and some in other currencies. Euro is NOT going to collapse, all the doomsday sayers here are just that, doomsday sayers. There will be a lot of friction withing the euro zone, one day they might even kick Greece and maybe a few more countries out for a while (doubt it personally) but if so it'll only strengthen the euro.

The Euro, like all the other currencies, will be going up and down but it's safe. The Swiss franc might keep rising for a while but the rise is hurting the Swiss economy and a higher unemployment will lower its value (still a few year away). The Japanese Yen's high exchange rate combined with the tsunami disaster, nuclear meltdown and the notorious jobless recovery is hurting the Japanese economy and it will put an enormous pressure on the Japanese government; they will do everything they can to lower the value of the Yen. The US dollar is way down and there are many doomsday sayers here too however, the debate in the US has now shifted from massive government spending, inflation fueling printing of new money and government takeovers of private businesses to not IF and WHEN but HOW MUCH money the government must save and how much the government's tax-revenue waste needs to be trimmed. In the long run the current crisis will be very good for the US economy and the dollar will rebound.

Don't know what kind of options your bank gives you but if you have the option of saving money in the Chinese Yuan (Communist China's "peoples' money" or RMB) I'd do so. The interest rate is fairly high due to the higher inflation BUT the exchange rate has to keep rising due to the outside world pressure on China, a double-whammy bonus. I have some money parked in a Hong Kong bank (in Hong Kong you can save money in Hong Kong dollars and/or the RMB).

However, if it's money that you really don't need right now and won't need it for a while then why are you saving it in a savings account?? Open a low cost broker account, do some research and "play" with some of your savings. It's riskier BUT it also pays off faster if you're willing to do some research. In the last 6 months alone I've made over 45% on buying and selling google (goog) and baidu (bidu) stock. You'll never become rich by saving alone, historically saving accounts give you just a tiny edge over the inflation rate. Buy some stocks you believe in, set a sell limit price and put it "on autopilot." Hope I don't come across as condescending toward you, not my intention at all.

Good luck to you.

PS. As far as your profile - "moving to poland to enjoy life and get away from this useless country"

Apparently that "useless country" or Ireland allowed you to save up some money? I think it's a pretty unfair description of an entire country, wouldn't you say?

Hi, I would venture to say that if you want to preserve or even expand your savings in the next 2 to 3 years then the bes thing to do would be to invest it in physical gold or silver.

Most of the main fiat currencies are on shaky ground at the moment, and with the US national debt exceeding the Greek on a per capita basis, and a new wave of QE imminent, I would not want to be holding dollars. Wouldn't want euros either.

The reason the Swiss franc is so strong at the moment may also be partly because of the Swiss central bank's decision to start seriously looking at reverting to a gold standard and start issuing gold francs for common circulation in the near future.

Gold is riding an all time high against the euro, pound and dollar at the moment, but is still a good investment so long as you can hold it for at least a couple of years, and silver even more so, relatively cheap to get into and its long term value is looking even better now that the emerging solar technologies rely on it for component parts.

If you bought silver today, you could pretty much bank on making a 25% return by the end of the year, more if you hold for longer.

Regards,

Matt

Zloty

Sorry Matt but this is simply not true, Switzerland is not reverting to any gold standard, issuing new gold coins, etc., is a totally different issue and happens in many countries. There's not enough gold in the world for a country of size to adhere to a gold standard. Noticed how you said "Gold is riding an all time high against the euro, pound and dollar at the moment" - the all time high being the keywords. I love investing in stocks which is risky yet I'd never invest in gold or other precious metals as it's even riskier. Gold might keep going up for another year or so or it might turn out to be a huge pent-up bubble, you just never know.

any currency is good as long as you got lots of it :-)

This guy disagrees with you... ;)

I guess, he still doesn't have enough of it then :-)

Tru dat, this picture only shows his lunch money; his savings are loaded up on several 18-wheeler trucks... :)

Hiya, I agree that the only thing set in stone is that all we can do is speculate, we're just choosing to play the same game from different perspectives.

This isn't the first all-time high against fiat currencies, those records have been broken many times over the past year or two, and will continue to do so for at least another 2-3 years in my opinion.

The Swiss debate - well they abolished their gold standard relatively recently, in 1997. Then the Swiss central bank (SNB) along with a whole host of other central banks sold off a mighty amount of their gold reserves, which if course pushed the price down for a while.

Then 9/11 happened, which triggered the start of the current situation. The gamble is betting on whether this is a bull market for gold and silver, or a bubble.

I'm putting my money on the former.
Here is a link to a short article on the gold franc in terms of a parallel currency rather than just a standard issue like the krugeraand/panda/sovereign etc:

marketwatch.com/story/swiss-parliament-to-discuss-gold-franc-2011-07-0 7

It is just one article telling one side of the story granted, but I just wanted to confirm that there is the beginning of a real discussion about it.

In any case, even if it is a bubble, it will still last for as long as the current 'solution' to global financial problems is to keep printing more money. If the central banks keep the printing presses running, inflation will stay high, and investors will keep turning to precious metals in order to protect their wealth.

When the price stablises though, metals will always be a good way to store wealth because the way the fiat system works, inflation will always devalue paper money against rare commodities.

I know a few people that make good money from stocks in the current short term, and I will be the first person to admit that the main reason I don't invest (in the short term) is because I find the metals market (and politics) much easier to get my head around!

The return from metals for me as a new investor 2 years ago have been so astronomical that yes, I do often think it's not sustainable, but as soon as I think they are slacking off, they take off again, and returns of around 150% are difficult to walk away from.

I will always be prepared to eat my hat of course, and if I lose the lot, you are more than welcome to buy me a beer and tell me 'you told me so' :0)

Matt

ps that photo posted above made me giggle, but man, crazy times..

All good points and I guess hysteria has always driven the shiny metals up, in a way we aren't that much different from a magpie. :)

Wish you the best and I do prefer dark beer. ;)

In January 1980 gold was fixed at a record 850 USD an ounce while high inflation, strong oil prices , Soviet intervention in Afghanistan as well as the impact of the Iranian revolution prompted investors to heavily buy the metal. Adjusting for inflation, meant the 1980 record high price was actually $2,079 an ounce at 2006 prices, while, according to precious metals consultancy GFMS, the real average price in 1980 was calculated at $1,503.

This is one of the reasons I would not buy gold at USD 1,600.

Hmm, shiny!!

Gold at $1,600 doesn't really seem like a good investment does it, totally agree there. I do expect it to hit $2,500 without too much effort within a couple of years though, but I swapped out for silver personally because it's bigger and makes me feel better if I have to store it in larger boxes ;0)

To be fair to silver though, it does have many industrial uses (so still good in boomtime), it's a major ingredient in the new solar technology which has a good future (so long as we don't all blow ourselves up), and it's trading well below its traditional levels (in terms of the gold:silver ratio).

There was a nice window to play that ratio game which was essentially free money, swapping gold for silver then back again, and then back again, now I'm just going to forget about it and see what happens (Dark beer - check).

I think those of you playing the Stocks game are far braver than I am, that's for sure. I hope in a way for all of our sakes that you're right, because a global crash isn't going to be much fun at all.

I agree with your quote- incastone, if it does blow up again and it is very possible, there will not be the same tools in place to stop the rot. If it came to that, I will be buying as much farmland as I can get.