It is probably for the same reason that the American dollar is not what it used to be worth. We have Canadians who will flock down to our country to buy products because they can make their money stretch further here with the exchange rate. Tourists are more likely to go to countries in which they can get a good deal with their money.
I am from Russia. St. Petersburg. Private financial analyst. Traders and investors on the MICEX. But we can buy and sell shares of the US and Europe, through brokers. Europe close, especially Finland and before, many went there. Now more complicated. Expensive. We sell a lot of consumer goods from Europe. Now their sales fell. But speculators and investors prefer dollar. It is considered a more reliable currency. And it willingly accept payment in the East, China, etc.
Yes I have some friends from Finland and they told me the same. Especially the cities close to the Russian border used to be visited by Russian tourists constantly. Both rich Russians coming for holidays and middle class going to buy high quality goods from supermarkets etc. But now that has slowed down a lot, partly due to political tension but mainly due to the ruble falling.
Yeah, no surprise about that, no one wants to go to a war zone. As for the Euro, it's rising slowly again, at 0.89 of the dollar after being at 0.92.
That is a great quote! Who cares if it is controversial? Some of the wisest words ever uttered were some of the most controversial.
It's essentially a race to the bottom between the US dollar and the Euro. The respective Central Banks are setting the interest rates as low as possible to keep asset prices inflated despite the fact that there is still loads of bad debt behind the assets. Many Euro zone bonds are paying effective interest rates below zero. Because of a thing called - interest rate parity - the Central Bank with the lowest effective interest rates will cause their currency to drop against competing currencies.
Just means that more outsiders with big money would have to invest in this currency. I can see now that lots of people are upset about the inflation with the Euro.
Germany calls the shots when it comes to Eurozone fiscal policy and they have an absolute obsession with inflation after their problems in the 1920's. They also have an export and manufacturing driven economy so they are quite happy to have a dog currency for now. Add in the problems with Greece and Spain and Speculators run from any currency that has an uncertain future.
His name sells him out quite quickly too ...Russian... you got to love the way he explains it out too ...verily understood, i was also wondering why the sharp drop...now i know
