Berkeley Group Holdings (The) Live Discussion

dazedandconfused 16 Nov 2016

Re: Times Article You two need to get a hotel room...next to a Forex dealer, in Wroclaw...nice to see latest comment is back on track.

Eadwig 14 Nov 2016

Re: Times Article "Fx is currently 5.13 which means the best I'll get on the UK high street is about 4.70 "Now 5.12 and Tesco offering 4.76 I noticed this morning. That's 'competitive', but still a 15% spread. You'd be livid if you had to take that for just about anywhere else, even given it's tourist rates.

Eadwig 13 Nov 2016

Re: Times Article Bowman, "You must be cheering Trump"I don't think that is ever going to happen, but yes, I'm hopeful of the exchange rate and want to exchange a portion at anything over 1:5 and think this might be a fairly narrow window.Trouble is I'm in the UK and the cash is literally in Poland, so am trying to arrange someone to be on hand tomorrow to take some to exchange. It wouldn't matter if the cash was here anyway, actually. The exchange rate is currently 5.13 which means the best I'll get on the UK high street is about 4.70 (Barclays quoting 4.60 as I type). In Poland I'll get about 5.10 IF it is the same tomorrow late afternoon which is going to be the first possible time Ms Eadwig can get there in person.Of course it might be higher still, but that isn't how my luck tends to go ... at least I haven't yet been forced to take anything under 5.00 but there are some things that need to be paid forward soon. I can't quite tell if the GBP is actually stronger or that it is just both the Euro and USD weakening on the result and being next door to the Eurozone (indeed many banks insist Polish mortgages are paid in Euros) the zloty tends to affected. Despite the Polish economy being healthier than the rest of the EU in terms of growth.Poland also has a border with Russia, Ukraine and one of the Baltic states whose NATO membership is probably the only thing keeping Putin out. None of that adds up to massive confidence in the currency after this result either - so I may get a better rate yet ... and one of those new Russian 'NATO beating' tanks parked at the end of the street.Wonderful times.

Bowman 13 Nov 2016

Re: Times Article Eadwig,You must be cheering Trump, since I see the Polish zloty is now back to ~5.13, so within spitting distance of the ~5.20 you were aiming for, and much higher than the 4.85 you were complaining about. You will be hoping that the rate of gain since Wednesday continues for a few more days. It seems to be all a bit of a lottery at the moment.[link] you had not already moved the money, and so missed out on the rise.

susanne9 07 Nov 2016

general Totally agree with everything you say DS. I am bemused by all the hatred flying around fuelled by the press I am sure. I live in Lincolnshire where we have quite a high proportion of Eastern Europeans who, as you say seem a happy bunch and do their jobs cheerfully and efficiently.Have just come out of BKG but looking to get back in again at some point. Housebuilders seem to be especially subject to fluctuation in view of all the uncertainty.

Damp Seaweed 07 Nov 2016

Re: Times Article I live out in the deepest darkest Dorset countryside and my kids are either, metropolitan or live overseas. So I don't get very must direct exposure to these polarised views. The East Europeans and Asian that seem to provide all the services out here, from parcel deliveries to pulling my pint at the fireworks display in the local pub all seem quite a happy bunch and I get the feeling that my neighbours / immediate community seem indifferent to their presence. They speak English, are cheerful, do the job well, what's not to like ?I was obviously shocked by the inflammatory headlines in the Daily Mail /Express. I'm usually bemused by their biased and provocative headlines, but the personal attack on the judges was quite wrong. And Nigel Farage, seems to have spent to much time with Trump and has moved from being controversial to bigoted. Fundamentally I feel we have been moving into a higher stress confrontational society. And it seems to permutate the minutiae of everyday life. Councils use speed and parking fines to covertly raise revenue, or Utilities /Insurance/ Services providers punishing loyalty. Supermarkets create complex pricing/discounts to trick and confuse. These all add to the ambient stress level and can provide the tinder to ignite the flames of unrest.Anyway, back on topic, I don't expect the Trump/Clinton spectacle should have much effect on BKG or most of the FTSE250. I'm just hoping a decent trading update and the approach of the next divi, might improve the lacklustre price.

Eadwig 07 Nov 2016

Re: Times Article DS, Good points about happiness, except I'm not married and I'm not moving there permanently. The amount of money isn't actually that massive. I'm only committed to paying for the fitting out (kitchen, bathrooms, air con, central heating etc) and general decorating and furnishing of a new build 3 bed, 2 bathroom apartment. I might have committed to buying the whole place as well, and then that would have been big. Like most things in Poland, prices are pretty similar to the UK - especially when the government adds VAT on to new housing! We moan about stamp duty! As it happens we decided I'd keep my UK property - because of the approaching uncertainty of Brexit, mainly, but also because I do spend a lot of time in the UK anyway, one way or another.The feeling of being punished for having done nothing wrong is the major thing. It isn't just exchange rates either. I can't dwell on it too long or I would risk getting extremely bitter and punching the next taxi driver that starts moaning about immigrants as though I'm not only interested in his views but am likely to share them (this in York with a 70% remain vote).Hey Ho! Was hoping for a stronger come back from BKG today than we are seeing so far - given the 'Trump is going to win' scare seems to have been put to bed by the FBI over the weekend. Maybe.

Damp Seaweed 05 Nov 2016

Re: Times Article Hi Eadwig,I'm sure your very well aware, but I'll say it anyway; any financial expedience is irrelevant in comparison to the happiness of you wife and family. The timing of Britxit, the unpopular Polish politics, and its impact on the exchange rate is a bit of a bummer, but you will adapt and overcome it.I just hope that moving permanently will also work for you.I came within a few €'000 of buying a villa in southern Spain in April, but my wife had a bad feeling about it, (it's a woman thing) so I dug in on price and walked away. It's still for sale, though 20% more now due to the £/€.....any regrets....a few Take care and have a good weekend.

Eadwig 04 Nov 2016

Re: Times Article Bowman & DS, First of all thanks for your comments and advice.It is the Polish zloty that I'm concerned with, not the Euro and Eurozone, and so we're talking about the fastest growing major economy in Europe (in or out of the EU or Eurozone), typically over 3% for the last 10 years or so, including the only economy not to have a recession during the financial crisis. This helped support the zloty until the election of a new, radical conservative (in a Polish kind of way) president whose policies caused the zloty to dive. Unfortunately, the GBP has now dived much further. Yes, I should have been hedging, and to some extent I did with an exchange of most of the GBP I had in country before the vote. At that time I got 1:5.72 on a relatively small amount. But most of the damage was done with the exit vote (I never had the endowment cash until after the vote, remember) so there was a never a chance of my hedging substantially before. I was waiting for the GBP to come back a little before exchanging perhaps the first 25%. That was actually working and I was aiming to take 1:5.20 ... when the Bank of England started talking down the GBP and then later the Government had their conference, the rate to 1:4.70. I simply did not anticipate the enormous damage done to the GBP during those few weeks, knocking another 8% or so off the value of the GBP versus the zloty. Did anyone else think the Tory conference would be an exercise in undermining the GB Pound? I certainly never saw it coming.There is also the other side to consider as the radical president Duda's policies have not quite transpired as frighteningly as people were predicting, so the zloty has strengthened over the last few months also, aided by strong GDP growth. At weakest it was around 1:6.10 but had been as strong against the pound as 1:4.75 before he was elected.The current level is 1 GBP = 4.85 PL zloty, I'm hoping it gets back to 5.03 ish. That should guarantee me an actual rate of 1:5.00 when exchanging GBP cash in Poland. Don't ask me how they work on such small margins, but they do. I will exchange 25% at 5.00 zloty now, if the opportunity presents.Don't ask me what I'm waiting for when I believe article 50 will weaken the pound further. I don't know. I once said to Ms Eadwig that we should take 5.00 whenever it was on offer, and that was maybe 2 - 3 years ago. I suspect we're now back to that situation. The zloty isn't pegged to the Euro, and in fact Duda has said they wont ever join the Euro, so there isn't even any pretence of shadowing or anything.It is true to say that the GBPL Zloty pair do react quite differently in some ways to, say, GBP/USD. E.g. The bank of England rate cut barely impacted on the dollar rate, but August 4th on this graph stands out quite markedly:[link] the strengthening against the dollar in the last few days for GBP isn't reflected at all in the graph. I wasn't back in Poland with the endowment cash until Aug 14th. I obviously missed a great opportunity to exchange a little after that waiting for 5.20 (which would require an official rate of about 5.23) and it just didn't ever get there. The fall off was so quick there was no catching it really after that. So, I'm hoping for a slow climb back to around 5.00. I could be about to make the same mistake as i did in mid-late August.There is an alternative - Move the family to the UK. Ms Eadwig would walk into a job in the NHS at consultant level and then the whole Brexit irony would be a complete circle. There would be some loss in pulling out of the property purchase, but not as much as my whole exchange of the endowment cash at the current rate... Plus Ms Eadwig would earn that loss back very quickly in terms of elevated earnings. Only problem is, she doesn't want to move. Having seen the quality of education my daughter is getting before her third birthday (private - paid for before the vot

Bowman 03 Nov 2016

Re: Times Article Eadwig,Every currency pairing has two sides that affect the exchange rate. If factors in the UK improve (economy and base rates, etc.) this might have no effect on the FX rate if there are similar improvements in the Euro zone. It is difficult to second-guess both sides.So what you need is a UK improvement coupled with deteriorating factors in the EZ. However, let's face it we are currently at Euro rates we had in 2009/10. The Euro rate had been dropping since the mid- to late 2015 even before the June vote.The rates appears to have stabilised for the past month, so there is hope for an improvement in the coming months but I suspect that we may not see a full recovery (to the 1.3 region) for several years, although you could be lucky.I have limited exposure to the housing market, with BKG - which is not doing that well, GFRD - which has recovered well, and HWDN - which recovered and has since slumped. All relative to the post-vote slump. I think this sector will experience varying degrees of volatility until we actually start and then complete the EU leaving process. I doubt even a hard Brexit will have a sustained negative effect on the housing market, since we have a significant shortage of houses. I doubt if most foreigners who are here now will decide to leave, although there will be regional effects.

Damp Seaweed 03 Nov 2016

Re: Times Article Earwig,If you are expecting further devaluation of the £ viz € then, if you haven't already done it, would it not be wise to protect your endowment proceeds with a hedge or just convert it soonish?

Eadwig 03 Nov 2016

Re: Times Article Bowman,My portfolio has gained much from stocks I hold priced in USD and Euro also. Its only a silver lining for me, unfortunately. I had a 25 year endowment mortgage mature in July, the majority of which I had committed to be spent on a property in Poland - committed long before the vote date was set and Cameron called it earlier than expected.Unless something spectacularly positive happens for the GBP between now and next July when the money is due to be spent, I shall be losing out to the tune of about 20% as things stand.For the sake of 1 month of timing after 25 years ... it really is a sickener as I'm sure you can imagine from your experiences with Fx rates in the past, and I'm afraid very much makes me out to be one of the losers from Brexit, no matter how it all pans out (and I hold much the same view as you in your last paragraph).Sorry to those reading who have heard my sob story before on another board. Good rise for BKG on the back of PSN results, probably, although PSN has relatively little exposure to the south east and London, so may be something else brewing.

Bowman 03 Nov 2016

Re: Times Article Eadwig,Just seen your clarification. I agree that one needs to look at rather shorter timeframes. I think most people are interested in shorter periods, and look at specific currencies or sets of currencies. I would agree that the general trend for GBP is downwards against most of the major currencies.I spent most of my working life on the continent, and was usually paid in the currency of the Country in which I was working, so I profited from the general downtrends. However there was a period in the middle where GBP rose, and, more by luck than judgement, I was paid in GBP for the majority of that period.The changes in the US$ exchange rate over the period from mid 1970' to early 2000's only affected the few business trips I had to make to the USA.I am based in the UK so am only affected as far as the change causes the prices of what I buy to change. I now rarely travel outside the UK so again the FX rate is only a minor irritant. My biggest exposure to the effects of the FX markets is how it affects the prices of my stock/bond market investments and the income derived from them.The FX component/effect is taken into account when making new purchases or deciding when to make disposal. Currently overall my portfolio has benefited from the recent FX effects, and I have several investments where I might decide to make reductions were I to see a concerted revaluation of GBP upwards.I also no not think we will see a major revaluation in the near to mid-future, but would not be surprised if we reverted to the sort of levels seen earlier in the year. I certainly would not expect the USD:GBP rate to exceed about 1.50 within the next few years, and probably not within the next decade.I am also rather pessimistic about the future of the UK, but then I have I have been for quite a number of years. My approach is to expect the worst, and then to be pleasantly surprised when things turn out better. I think one has to be very careful about being too short-sighted and overly pessimistic, which is just as bad as being overly optimistic. I do not buy into the rosy future touted by the majority of the Brexiteers, and think that at best we will achieve is something about the same level as before, only the details will be different; i.e. the winners from the change will compensate for the losers so in general nothing much will have changed. I just hope and pray that I will be one of the winners!!

divvent argie 03 Nov 2016

Nice Rise Not sure if this is down to Persimmon update or the death of Brexit in the high court.

Eadwig 02 Nov 2016

Re: Times Article PIE-EATER,I think you're probably right, my hope that article 50 is the bottom is exactly that - a hope. Although I do think it might be the last significant, sharp drop, perhaps ...Unfortunately the likelihood of hard-line negotiating stances being leaked during the 2 year process is all too probable, as you say, with the consequent drifting of the GBP probably downwards.