Where To Invest Cash Today ?

[philstone]

The best investment available at the moment is a Republican victory in November.

Pays 150% for a two month investment.

In two months time, I will say 'told ya'

I do not believe in Betting to invest money I just open a Jumbo for 200,000 pounds in a off shore Account in the Royal Bank of Nigeria it pays 8 per cent interest a month can any of beat that. Also as foreign the Nigeria Government the tax is 12 per cent after the first 100,000 pounds earned on Interest in the Royal Bank of Nigeria.

[meom]

From 1 January 1995 X convert USD.12000 a year in a THB savings account at 2.5% interest (minus 15% tax on interest) while Y deposit USD.12000 a year in a Singapore Offshore account at 7.5% (tax free) interest.

How much does X have on 1 January 2008 and how much Y?

Subject to audit, on Jan 1st 2008 X has US$196,975 at an exchange rate of 30.04 while Y has US$226,268. The first 3 years with the ER circa 25 didn't help X much.

Guess you're right Malcolm. I did the calculation using average yearly USD/THB rates and came up with USD. 207,277 for X at a rate of 32.05 and USD.249,666 for Y.

On my way now to open an offshore account

[cloudhopper]

On my way now to open an offshore account

And I'm sure we'd all be interested to know what sort of off-shore account you're getting 7.5% on!

Hard to pass up on that Nigerian one though!

[BEENTHEREDONETHAT]

The best investment available at the moment is a Republican victory in November.

Pays 150% for a two month investment.

In two months time, I will say 'told ya'

I do not believe in Betting to invest money I just open a Jumbo for 200,000 pounds in a off shore Account in the Royal Bank of Nigeria it pays 8 per cent interest a month can any of beat that. Also as foreign the Nigeria Government the tax is 12 per cent after the first 100,000 pounds earned on Interest in the Royal Bank of Nigeria.

If you let it compound you will have to start paying the 12% tax after 5 months. It will double in 9 months (not taking tax into account).

Have you ever heard the old saying "If it sounds to good to be true, it probably isn't". I'd say this investment sounds way to good to be true. Good luck and let us know how it turns out.

[meom]

On my way now to open an offshore account

And I'm sure we'd all be interested to know what sort of off-shore account you're getting 7.5% on!

Hard to pass up on that Nigerian one though!

Besides Nigeria there's probably some good other offers

Not with HSBC though; they're offering only 2.238 if you deposit USD.100,000 for one year.

[VegasVic]

I have never purchased a commodity as strictly an investment but I am looking to silver right now. There is a seriously diminishing supply of world silver. Silver has always been and stands to always be used as money in some form. I am talking taking delivery and storing it myself. Not easy but with so much silver as only paper, not having the actual silver could pose huge problems. The Perth Mint is having big difficulties right now keeping up with orders. I am confident that silver will break $50 again and several "experts" are talking triple digits.

-silver was never $ 50, the highest price (i think early 1980) was ~$23 and then the Hunt brothers went belly-up. their saudi partner was bailed out by his father.

-there is a good chance that my wife will approve that i acquire 18-year old triplets as mia nois before silver reaches triple digits

Naam, Pakboong was correct, silver did hit $49 and change/ounce (OK not quite $50) breifly back in 1980 when the Hunt bros attempted to corner the world silver market. I remeber it well because my brother and I made a windfall. I am not one to park $ in a metal commodity investment very long, but curently silver is heading down a lot faster than gold, and as some previous posters here have pointed silver does have an actual growing demand(and a shrinking supply) for industrial applications where as gold has a shrinking demand. Part of this recent disparity in the relation of silver to gold is the "true believer gold bug" factor, which is the gold bugs failure to acknowedge that their precious( ) investment has had its day in the Sun and is headed back to the basement, when the gold bugs do capitulate gold will make a precipitous fall and silver will come down even further. When silver makes it back to around $7/ounce it could be interesting to nibble on a bit.

[Naam]

Naam, Pakboong was correct, silver did hit $49 and change/ounce (OK not quite $50) breifly back in 1980 when the Hunt bros attempted to corner the world silver market.

checked it, Pakboong was correct indeed and i was wrong.

[flying]

Not with HSBC though; they're offering only 2.238 if you deposit USD.100,000 for one year.

I have been getting 3.5% from them for their regular savings.

It is set to change on 9/15/08 though.

Although they did say it would end on Aug 15th & they extended.

Capital One where I also have an account pays 3.5% with no end in sight.......yet

[Wrong Turn]

I think a big part of this issue, is what are current interest rates in LOS, and our native countries, and if they're going to remain similar or move in one direction.

In my home-country a lot of people thought inflation would remain around 3%, which is what it's been for the past 20 years. Now, this is not the case, and over the long term this can seriously affect our returns, gain, and losses.

LOS interest rates to remain where they are now, for a while? Or, do we know?

[cloudhopper]

So Naam, if the best place to invest cash is in - cash, where's the best place to keep it and in what form do you reckon?

i have of course still assets (bonds) which are not cash Cloudhopper. but whatever proceeds i receive are added to my existing cash all of which i keep on overnight or weekly rates enabling me to switch currencies within a few minutes (which i don't do very often) if need be. present status of cash is (all percentages approximately) €UR 50%, AUD 10%, TRY 12%, NZD 7%, NOK 4%, INR 4%, BRL 10%, THB 3%. i a, looking for more diversification (e.g. CNY, IDR, PHP) but that's quite difficult to arrange.

Naam I was always intrigued that your cash diversification did not include $US. Are you still staying clear of US$ ? You seem to be into some fairly high yielding currencies, whereas some like JPY, CHF etc. are thought (by some anyway) to be a bit more "solidly backed" but don't offer much yield. Just curious about the calculus of yield vs exchange rate/purchasing power risk in choosing how to diversify...

of course not CH! august 13th was for me a turning point when i got rid of all HY-currencies as well as NOK and CHF (except my beloved TRY which is stable vs. USD and yields ~18% for cash!). my USD-holdings are back to 34% (55% bonds / 45% cash). but as of today afternoon i have again mixed feelings and closed an open position to rake in some profits derived from the recent USD strength. that might have been a mistake but nobody ever got poor from taking profits

USD cash was until recently a big no-no for me and i am not sure what to do with my present $-cash. i don't see much alternatives although my belly says the big dollar rally is running out of steam.

It appears that since the USD is about 2/3 of all the world's currency there is a powerful incentive for central banks holding them in significant amounts to try not to decimate it's value despite the fact that a lot more is being created. How long can that last though? I noticed that TRY dropped about 4% today vs. the USD - how quickly high yield can be negated by devaluation!

[lannarebirth]

Do you believe they're propping the Yen similarly? It's running even harder.

[Naam]

So Naam, if the best place to invest cash is in - cash, where's the best place to keep it and in what form do you reckon?

i have of course still assets (bonds) which are not cash Cloudhopper. but whatever proceeds i receive are added to my existing cash all of which i keep on overnight or weekly rates enabling me to switch currencies within a few minutes (which i don't do very often) if need be. present status of cash is (all percentages approximately) €UR 50%, AUD 10%, TRY 12%, NZD 7%, NOK 4%, INR 4%, BRL 10%, THB 3%. i a, looking for more diversification (e.g. CNY, IDR, PHP) but that's quite difficult to arrange.

Naam I was always intrigued that your cash diversification did not include $US. Are you still staying clear of US$ ? You seem to be into some fairly high yielding currencies, whereas some like JPY, CHF etc. are thought (by some anyway) to be a bit more "solidly backed" but don't offer much yield. Just curious about the calculus of yield vs exchange rate/purchasing power risk in choosing how to diversify...

of course not CH! august 13th was for me a turning point when i got rid of all HY-currencies as well as NOK and CHF (except my beloved TRY which is stable vs. USD and yields ~18% for cash!). my USD-holdings are back to 34% (55% bonds / 45% cash). but as of today afternoon i have again mixed feelings and closed an open position to rake in some profits derived from the recent USD strength. that might have been a mistake but nobody ever got poor from taking profits

USD cash was until recently a big no-no for me and i am not sure what to do with my present $-cash. i don't see much alternatives although my belly says the big dollar rally is running out of steam.

It appears that since the USD is about 2/3 of all the world's currency there is a powerful incentive for central banks holding them in significant amounts to try not to decimate it's value despite the fact that a lot more is being created. How long can that last though? I noticed that TRY dropped about 4% today vs. the USD - how quickly high yield can be negated by devaluation!

one of the reasons is that i converted my TRY last friday into USD

joke aside. only ignorant investors would leave an investment in a currency like TRY under prevailing circumstances (global risk aversion) unsupervised or without placing a stop loss order which triggers an automatic conversion once a set threshold is crossed. a prudent investor in TRY was also definitely aware that the turkish central bank's interest cut one month ago would put pressure on the currency = another reason to watch development extremely carefully.

that HY can quickly be "lower or low yield" caused by a fall of the HY-currency (not devaluation) against one or more other currencies is a well known fact, as well known as day and night and any investor who deals with or invests in HY-C is or should be aware of that.

summing up: for some investors the drop of a HY-currency vs. USD is completely irrelevant because their interest is focussed on HY-C vs. their domestic currency or selected reference currency, be it Kazakh Tenge, Angolan Kwanza, Singapore Dollar, shrivelled heads in Papua New Guinea or Kauri Shells on some islands in the South Pacific.

fact: TRY down vs. USD today at 12.12 GMT -0,98%

please do not send any money. this lecture is free of charge

edited for addendum: i consider "Cloudhopper" to be a person with great interest in finance/investing of any kind and a bit a friend of mine. in no way my answer was meant to be impolite. my way to answer is how we Klingons who have a barbarian german background react

Edited October 7, 2008 by Naam