Which is more risky? USD or GBP earnings?

[Chris Kent]

Living in the UK and earning in USD, I've actually benefited from sterling's recent depreciation against the dollar.

But I worry about the future. Although I think the UK economy is screwed with all the government intervention and high levels of personal debt and little to export and a bad competitive position in global trade (e.g. high cost workforce), I do wonder about the dollar.

People like Marc Faber think the USD is doomed due to the massive deficit in the US. I'm wondering if I should diversify and try to earn IM money in sterling.

Which currency do you think is doomed to crash more versus the other?

Please don't kid yourself that government intervention is going to save the markets. It won't! I advise you to buy into gold and keep it out of your government's reach - use a service like bullionvault.com to keep your money in Zurich.

[klublok]

I tend to think that the USD would depreciate further into the future. This is because of the massive deficit and the HUGH billouts which may cause massive inflation in the future.

Then again, picking currency movements is like picking lotto numbers, so it could go either way.

Why don't you price in Euros? Or would that upset your customers?

[Chris Kent]

Yeah most of my income comes from Clickbank. Everything is converted into dollars.

I wonder what CB will do if there is a serious devaluation in the $. Will they build in a new function that allows price discrimination against non-US buyers. A major currency devaluation of the $ is something that has not happened before. Such a change by CB would actually help all publishers and affiliates and it wouldn't increase prices for non-US buyers - though it might piss them off that they're not getting the benefit of a USD crash.

btw targetting the European market is difficult. It is well established that English language products are priced in USD. Something I might look into is getting my products translated into German and pricing them in euros. I say this because I think that there is a big market for German infoproducts but I'd love to hear from people here with experience of pricing in Euros and targetting the eurozone.

[DavidO]

Trying to forecast currencies is hard even for the "experts". I live most of the time in the UK and Spain and the weak dollar the last few years has hurt. I'm happy to see it rising against both sterling and the euro.

Will it last? When you consider that the dollar has been so weak for several years, yes, I think it's bound to continue to strengthen. The pound will eventually recover but it will probably be weak for severaly years like the dollar has been.

For lack of anything else, the dollar is still the default reserve currency for most of the world, which is why it's finally been rising. True, there is massive debt, but that's also true for sterling. The dollar will win out every time.

This is good for IMers because, even if you live elsewhere, the dollar is our main income. Having said that, diversification is always wise and I'm trying to do that. This is difficult with the bulk of sales coming from the U.S. This is not likely to change any time soon.

[Steveb2u]

The US has not reached the bottom yet....it is going to get a little uglier before it gets better

[Martin Luxton]

If the currency of the world's biggest economy (which drives the global economy) implodes do you really think other currencies will do any better? Certainly not the pound.

Martin

[Chris Kent]

Does anyone know if click2sell.eu allows you to price in Euros? Their site does not explain this - just says they accept payments in EUR, GBP and USD.

btw I think this thread is just as applicable for US residents. Imagine if your currency devalued - if you had some EUR or non-USD earnings then you would be hedged against this - I think diversification is important for everyone.

[AlanCarr]

Economics is one of my pet subjects and something I've been studying since about 1980 or so. I'm not an economist but considering the state of the industry that's actually a compliment...

If you want to study REAL economics check out the Austrian School. Not much to do with Austria today but vastly more to do with reality than anything you'll hear on TV or in schools and colleges.

Let me put this bluntly. The dollar is completely screwed.

By rights it was screwed some time ago but these things take awhile.

Normally when governments, often in cahoots with other governments, try various tricks to substain a bubble, sorry to "rescue the economy" they can indeed hold of the day of reckoning by making the next bubble even bigger.

This time they're running out of ammunition. This is not delaying the day of reckoning, this IS the day of reckoning.



B.

[Martin.Avis]

As far as ClickBank is concerned, as they now convert your price into the customers' own currency (in which they pay) it is a moot point.

My products are all in US$, but I've just this morning made a sale in Danish Kroner.

At first I thought that the currency conversion function would reduce sales, but so far I've seen no evidence for that fear.

Martin

[DavidO]

I agree with much of what you say, Bigsofty, but to paraphrase the previous poster: if the dollar implodes, what's left? The EURO could be a contender but it's about to take a dive too. I don't think you can forecast that the U.S. economy and currency is finished.

Having said that, by all means diversify if you can. Many payment processors as well as shopping carts can be set up to take multiple currencies. I'm working on that myself and, who knows?, maybe my non-US buyers will increase the beyond the current 3%.

[TimRobinson]

Hrm... I quite like the US dollar being as good as it is at the moment, at 65c AU to each dollar US it's like I'm getting paid 40% more with every sale

[Chris Kent]

Originally Posted by Martin.Avis

As far as ClickBank is concerned, as they now convert your price into the customers' own currency (in which they pay) it is a moot point.

My products are all in US$, but I've just this morning made a sale in Danish Kroner.

At first I thought that the currency conversion function would reduce sales, but so far I've seen no evidence for that fear.

Martin

Hi Martin, not sure what you mean about it being a moot point. The payment in foreign currency is merely at today's exchange rate with the dollar. The dollar is still the main currency of CB products.

If the dollar halved in value then all non-US resident CB affiliates/publishers would see their income slashed in half too.

[derekwong28]

In my opinion, the UK is in a much bigger mess than the US. Its housing bubble was much much greater and so was personal debt. The financial and property sectors is much bigger in proportion to the overall economy. Morover, the UK govt and BOE were much more complacent than the US and reacted quite late in the game. Morover, Jim Rogers who was a partner of Soros said, "UK is finished"

[Peter Hajnal]

Hi,
I prefer the USD. But for me the GBP is the same. I can not compare them with our HungarianForint.

[Kay King]

The dollar is higher now against the Euro and CAN than it was months ago.
Chances are it will continue to fluctuate - what else is new?

Fact is - if you are targeting a US market, you have to sell in dollars. How and when you convert those dollars to another currency is up to you.

kay

[Chris Kent]

Originally Posted by Kay King

The dollar is higher now against the Euro and CAN than it was months ago.
Chances are it will continue to fluctuate - what else is new?

Fact is - if you are targeting a US market, you have to sell in dollars. How and when you convert those dollars to another currency is up to you.

kay

Point out the obvious lol! What I'm talking about here is diversifying. Do any Warriors receive money in Euros? I might try looking into selling to the UK again. All your eggs in the US is too risky.