Originally Posted by JohnnyP
If you travel enough internationally, is it worth opening overseas bank accounts? What has been your own experience?
I travel to Europe frequently and have been hit hard by the developing spread between the euro and the dollar. A few years ago, I was considering opening a bank account in Europe, but couldn't be bother with the hassle. Now, I wish I had.
Do other US-based FT'ers have bank accounts in other countries? Is that pretty easy to set-up (online?)? Would generally be interested in ideas and recommendations based on your experience.
I do not understand the meaning of "spread" between the dollar and the euro. That term is usually used to express the difference between buy and sell between the two currency. If you are talking about the decrease in value of the dollar, how would a foreign account help you?
I thought about opening a euro account, as in addition to travel, I spend quite a bit of euro buying product by the container load.
However, I can still purchase euro at under 1% premium from my money trader for wiring to vendors, and with an ATM card purchase euro for well under 2%. Foreign bank accounts were very expensive, and required a large minimum deposit, and I still had to convert the dollars to euro, and the foreign banks gave lousy rates.
If your problem is the fact that the dollar is decreasing ihn value, and you want to hedge against it, I would recommend shorting euro futures with dollars.