Scripting News: Currency accounts, day 2

Scripting News, the weblog started in 1997 that bootstrapped the blogging revolution.

Currency accounts, day 2

Yesterday, I asked how an ordinary American investor could hedge against weakness in the dollar. To clarify, I wasn't thinking of converting stocks or bonds, it's just a question of what currency I keep my cash in.

Anyway, this is something that a fair number of Scripting News readers know something about, and lots of great advice came back in short order. A summary follows.

1. ETFs are stocks traded on the NYSE that track various currencies.

2. HSBC and Everbank have multiple-currency accounts. But watch out for commissions every time you convert from one currency to another. They could wipe out all the gains you may have from holding assets in one currency vs another.

3. Becoming a currency trader may not actually be so hard, and you get the best rates on currency exchange.

4. Paypal lets you store value in a variety of currencies.

Thanks everyone for the excellent info! ";->"

Last update: Thursday, June 3, 2010; 4:01:35 PM

~About the Author~

Dave Winer, 55, is a visiting scholar at NYU's Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. He pioneered the development of weblogs, syndication (RSS), podcasting, outlining, and web content management software; former contributing editor at Wired Magazine, research fellow at Harvard Law School, entrepreneur, and investor in web media companies. A native New Yorker, he received a Master's in Computer Science from the University of Wisconsin, a Bachelor's in Mathematics from Tulane University and currently lives in New York City.

"The protoblogger." - NY Times.

"The father of modern-day content distribution." - PC World.

One of BusinessWeek's 25 Most Influential People on the Web.

"Helped popularize blogging, podcasting and RSS." - Time.

"The father of blogging and RSS." - BBC.

"RSS was born in 1997 out of the confluence of Dave Winer's 'Really Simple Syndication' technology, used to push out blog updates, and Netscape's 'Rich Site Summary', which allowed users to create custom Netscape home pages with regularly updated data flows." - Tim O'Reilly.

Mail: scriptingnews1mail at gmail dot com.

Aug Oct