With the US$ slumping against other major currencies, wouldn't be wise to hold your earnings until a time when the gains strength against other currencies?
Why is the dollar low? Because people are worried about the political situation in Iraq, and the effect it will have on the American economy. Bush has said some pretty depressing things about that situation recently, and currency values are affected by the national and international mood to a shocking degree. My guess is that if the US pulls out, the dollar will bounce back. But nobody really knows, effectively you have to make your best guess about what the future holds. A lot of Brits are really happy about the weak dollar, and booking flights to New York to do some Xmas shopping. Most of them probably assume this is a temporary thing, so they're making the best of it while they can.
It might be good for the shoppers and importers in the UK, but it sure isn't for exporters or people like use who want to get more sterling for the dollar.
There is more to the dollar than just Iraq war. US's external debt and deficits running in programs like social security and medicare are much higher than the costs of Iraq. Even if everything were to turn out good in Iraq, there still will be lot more to be done to revive the economy. USD may see short term strength if US troops withdraw from Iraq, but the long term is still hazy. I read in Donald Trump's "Why we want you to be rich" that medicare has a debt of 76 trillion dollars. Compared to this figure, Iraq costs are minuscule. US's troubles didn't start in last few years. They have accumulated over decades. I ll quote from Donald Trump's book:
And America doesn't even have an NHS! It's just a shame we can't earn Adsense in a currency of our choice. I mean, I'm in the UK, most of the advertisers that show up on my sites are also based in Britain, and Google is certainly a multinational company. Why can't I get paid in sterling?
They certainly CAN send checks in different currencies: https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?answer=15915
I think he means earn straight in Pound sterling, so it doesn't have to be converted from USD to Pounds in order to get paid. This way it cuts out the conversion worries.
you should really invest in silver if you want to keep a larger ammount for some time, get a chart at http://www.xpresstrade.com (left side, select "silver" between the quotes and the newsletter button and compare it with gold).
Oh I see, thanks for clarifying that. I am outside the US with a currency of 6 to 1US....quite happy with having my check sent in US dollars
Yeah us brits are getting stung for commissions paid in USD dollars at the minute. If you can afford to defer your paychecks until the situation improves then it might be a good option. Unfortunately i have to cover my advertising costs.
I keep the AdSense earnings in $ and I use some of that to pay the bills that come in $ like domains, servers etc... the rest just sits in my bank account for the future
Do you mean hold the money in dollars and hope for a better exchange rate, are you in the UK? I'm in the UK and the exchange rate is a bummer but things could get alot worse before they get any better.
the one good thing is that you can get close to 6% interest on short term investments 1-2 years... Which is interesting as that is the interest on my 30 year mortgage also!
It will come down but its just predicting when it will get back to around 1.7 or so, which I personally don't think will happen for at least 6 months or so, someone has already said it will get worse before it gets better which I also believe. Only problem with holding it is waiting for what could be a long time and therefore not getting any google checks to reinvest into your sites.
There is little to no reason to have Google hold onto your money. So what if you lose a few % on the current exchange rate. I'd much rather have money today to invest wisely than have to wait 6 - 12 months, in which time the money will do nothing but depreciate a few % in value due to inflation. The reality is the the currency is totally dependant on the strength of the US economy and your own countries economy. In this case it's the US economy that is weakening rather than the international economies, and if I was to have an educated guess (I study economics) I'd be guessing that it won't be regaining much ground in the next few months. So I say just ride the wave and accept the reality of international earnings and exchange rates effects on such earnings.
I'm in Thailand and it has been a double whammy with the US$ versus Thai baht. The dollar has been softening and the Thai baht got really strong after the coup here. In six months I've seen it go from 42:1 to 35:1 - pretty huge hit. Most of my money is in US$ - major bummer.