Let's say I have 50-100k in USD that I would like to hold in another currency. How should I go about doing this and which currencies should I be looking at?

Most forex brokers are a scam...
You want to trade on a real ECN...
Where you can place limit orders...
That everyone can see...
And everything is ** mostly ** legit.

Open an account with Interactive Brokers...
And start making small trades on their IDEALPRO ECN...
Minimum trade $25,000 to $35,000...
But margined at about 2.5%...
So $100K can margin $4,000,000 in Forex positions...
Anything less you are wasting your time.

There is NO SUBSTITUTE for trading real money...
You will go up the learning curve FAST out of FEAR.
The way you learned to play poker... learn Forex...
Except the rake in Forex < 10% of the rake in poker...
All casino games are a total ripoff.

Since you are concerned about the collapse of USD...
Focus on currencies with inverse correlation to USD...
Such as CAD and AUD... called "commodity currencies"...
Which have rallied DRAMATICALLY.

As the Marxist Obama engineers a US economic Apocalypse...
China and the world is fleeing the USD and all paper...
And into hard assets such as gold, metals, oil, land.

I am following this thread to learn forex trading.
http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showth...hp?t=118357841

I'm not really looking to actively trade. I just want to convert some of my usd to hedge against it.

Probably start with IB and hedge using some futures contracts.

The problem with hedging is you are going to have to pay a rollover fee on most pairs (basically just interest they charge you). Some can be quite high, so just be aware.

If you have any specific question, I've worked at two of the big currency brokers, so let me know...

It would be great if you could point me to where to get started. Let's say I wanted to transfer 50k usd to cdn and hold it somewhere.

Yeah hedging will always incur a fee/interest. But the benefit of a futures hedge is he doesn't need to outlay his roll to do it which is a big benefit if its poker reasons.

Arturius- not sure I get what you're saying. He can either trade currency futures or forex. He can leverage both, forex at 100-1, although I don't recommend it.

What I would do is open an account at one of the major forex firms- ib, fxcm, dukascopy, mbtrading (smaller but with really good spreads) probably 3 or 4 more. You should be ok depositing about 5000 to hedge 50k worth of currency. Some of those firms wont give you the inside market quotes unless you deposit at least 25k, but this isn't as big a deal if you're just doing a one time hedge. Trading any more than that and you definitely want the interbank quotes. Sell 50k of the USD/CAD pair and your all set. I'd give any firm you're looking at a call and ask-

1- Do you have different quotes for different size accounts?

2- Whats your rollover rate (how much interest) for the USD/CAD pair?

3- What can you do for me if I deposit more than 25k? 50k? Usually they will drop your commission a little.

4- Do you allow limit orders? If not...run. All these firms have better software options and better spreads the more you deposit ( I think all)

If you're daytrading, start small and be careful. Plenty of people start out just wanting to hedge and end up trading 20 times and day and getting their ass handed to them. Good Luck.

If anyone has an answer to the OP's question I'd be interested too.

Basically how do you make an exchange and get a good rate and not get hit with any hidden fees, and get it into a bank somewhere?

Do you really believe that dude? He has two daughters. He's not trying to "engineer an economic apocalypse" he's trying to wiggle his way out of a **** storm that really wasn't his fault.

Thanks, but I don't even know what most of this means. So basically, you are saying I should contact a Forex broker and have them exchange the money for me? Where would I keep the money? How would 5k help me hedge 50k?

You open a brokerage account, then you sell short the US dollar with a future contract, and then you are hedged. Weighting dependent.

I'm pretty sure you could contact a brokerage and they will do this, for a pretty sizeable fee, of course. If you want to do it discount, you have to learn it yourself. Interactive Brokers is a popular discount brokerage.

I'd really prefer a straight currency trade and to not speculate using securities or derivatives.

Go to the bank and exchange the currency? That's the answer you want to hear so here you have it.

Its not speculating, its hedging.....

The problem is, if you hold in another currency it can't make up your roll, and if you need to redeposit later you're taking a risk that the Canadian dollar or whatever might slide. Also if you're spending in USD you're also taking risk that later in life, you'll be trapped into losing money.

So just deposit the money with a canadian bank if thats what you want, but its not a hedge, its a speculation. And yeah, I don't get why you're asking this forum if that's what you're planning to do all along?

What about holding your money in an ETF like CurrencyShares?

What are the pros and cons of that option? I'm not looking to hedge or trade currencies, just curious about all these trading vehicles.

Thanks for all the advice everyone. Can you just exchange money at the bank or take it to a canadian bank and they will convert it to cdn?

Yes, both.

Yes, but that's dumb, and what ArturiusX suggested will have the same effect except you won't have all that capital locked up in a currency you can't use. Also tons of banks/pension funds/etc. are doing USD->CAD right now to profit on carry trade. CAD could plummet when US i.rates go up and they start unwinding their positions (although that's probably in the long-ish term, not 3-6 months).

What's the best way to do an exchange if you actually just want to convert, say, AU$100k, to the most US$ you can get at the time? I saw oanda.com, is that any good? Better than a brick and mortar bank?

So are you saying all banks are the same? And banks are the only option? And there's no chance of getting a crappy exchange rate? Or getting hit with hidden charges? Nothing could go wrong, right?

You'll need to shop around for a good rate. But you'll get shafted by the banks no matter what. Oanda.com might be a good alternative.

The problem is that the OP want's to hedge his currency position but doesn't want to use the instruments made for it. So basically he'll have to go to a bank, pay the spread and the commission and wait it out.

Where would the money be held if you did it at the bank? Say you turn 50k from usd to pesos. Would the bank hold that money?

Okay, I guess I wasn't interested in how OP should do his hedging thing.

I just wanted to find out how to get the best deal with a one-off largish foreign exchange.