With the Australian dollar falling significantly over the past few months, what are you looking to buy now, before prices increase?
I've got a Samsung S4 now and looking to get a new iPhone when my contact expires in May, but don't know if the prices will increase by then. Arrrghh.
What are you guys thinking about getting?
Why would you buy USD dollars now? lol
If you think they'll fall even further
Other way around, now would be the time to buy AU with USD. When the AU goes back up to 95c you then buy USD back
Unless you actually need to spend USD in the near future (for travel etc) and think that the AUD will fall, and any savings you'll make won't be offset by interest rates. I'm in that situation now!
Regarding Apple: they usually change their prices only when there is a new product released. In other words, it is very unlikely that the price of a new iPhone will change prior to iPhone 6S or whatever release.
Apple have adjusted prices for their products mid-cycle before. Especially when profit margins are squeezed.
Could you please provide examples when this happened in Australia? I am curious.
This is one incident
http://www.macrumors.com/2013/09/26/apple-quietly-raises-pri…
http://9to5mac.com/2013/09/25/apple-increases-mac-mini-prici…
There are other times when Apple raised prices but I can't find the details right now.
if we were from US, would have got the advantage of buying from Oz
What would you buy from Oz? Vegemite? Uranium?TimTams? Name one thing we produce/develop which is exclusive to our country and cannot be sourced cheaper from anywhere else in the world?
:|
Iron ore, coking coal, uranium.
China produces more than double the quantity of iron ore than us, at a cheaper labour cost, aka cheaper production cost for a company to operate and acquire.
China, USA, India, EU; each produces more coal than us. China has around 45%+ global production share compared to our 5%. Again, cheaper labour cost to operate a coal mine in either China or India than AUS.
Kazakhstan and Canada produces more uranium than us.
None of these are exclusive to our country. With a more stable currency rate, in all these long term industries, companies would benefit in investing in China or India over us. :|
Obviously we are able to sell these commodities at a profit, even if there is a lower cost producer elsewhere, because the market wants to buy more than they can supply.
Just because the local cafe is not cheaper than the one across the road doesn't mean it isn't a viable business.
Your last line about investment is incredibly naive. You well know that marginal coal production is facing government pressure in China because that thermal coal is so polluting, and is not particularly low cost. They have developed all the low cost mines (as have we).
If you are building a reactor with a 40 year life, might you pay a premium for uranium from a stable country like AU or CA rather than Kazakhstan? It appears businesses do.
Or are you arguing that China and India are so completely incompetant that they could sell coal and iron ore cheaper than Australia, but instead choose to support us by buying our commodities?
This is like saying Hollywood is useless to the USA because Bollywood can make movies cheaper.
This is like saying Hollywood is useless to the USA because Bollywood can make movies cheaper.
Love this analogy! Right on.
Yep agree with your point on the new regulations in China for the coal production.
Countries like India for example can't produce enough coal it needs, hence the purchase from us. However, recent policies show that Coal India, TATA etc have been pressurized by the new government to ramp up productivity to meet the demand curve, and essentially minimising to shutting down imports by 2-3 years. This, hits us hard. Combine it with the previous policies adopted by USA and China for emissions, our current climate change policies make it less favourable for the coal sector here.
End of the day, organization set up will depend on a lot of factors including production cost, current government policies, etc.
And from the current export figures, companies do tend to favour investing in infrastructure in Kazakhstan than Australia. Else it wouldn't have had a higher uranium export figure than us.
Simply put, we do not enjoy the economies of scale some of those countries do. And that factors in more than just the mere labour cost of production.
Also your analogy of Hollywood and Bollywood does not make logical sense. They cater to different demographics. You do not need to understand Hindi to use coal produced in India, and you definitely don't need to know about Drop Bears to use coal produced in Australia. However, if you can budget to teach the entire world population Hindi fluently, obsolete the English language and get everyone to only like Hindi movies, not anything else, it will definitely be a commercially success move to get all movies produced in Bollywood than Hollywood.
@shadowarrior:
Fair point about Hollywood/Bollywood when comparing commodities. But it does apply to some of our export markets, like tourism, education, maybe healthcare.
I am led to understand the Indian move is more wishful thinking and they do not have adequate coking coal resources, being mostly brown coal.
In any case, I am 100% in agreement we need to have a less environmentally damaging and short term export earners.
well Aussie Dollar for one thing, Forex trading
Be aware that the US has increased more than the AU has fallen..
ie. against other currencies, the AU is still doing OK.
ie Against the British Pound and Euro we're down from the high, but still pretty decent histroically.
Good point
Exactly. Even though many businesses price there products in USD I can't help thinking that it's more important to look at the AUD vs Chinese Yuan, Japanese Yen and Euro seeing as they are where we buy most of imports from.
Against the Euro we're looking good
Against the Yen we look ok
Not so flash against the Reminbi
and then there's the USD
Not doing so well against the baht
Boat has already sailed on some products. Tesla just raised the price of the model S $10k overnight. From $127k-138k for the exact same car really moves it into a different price bracket (and thats only mid range).
Maybe this will level out the Australia tax? There's no way Aussies will pay more for non essential media and devices than they do now.
Agreed!
this is a good time to sell your USD is you have any!
If the Australian dollar is going to fall further against the USD, it would actually be better to hold onto them…
I just saw an ad on the TV for Jeep (maybe Cherokee) for $27.5k. Those price will rise soon right?
how is that related to this thread?!
Jeeps are american, right? So with the aud dollar fall, won't the Jeeps increase in price?
Yes. Every new car price will rise on the next boat load. All stock on teh floor right now can be had at a reasonable price, but expect 10-20% price rises on everything that hasn't landed yet.
Swiss Franc also increased, so its terrible for watches.
Should buy Rolex and Panerai soon, as they're pretty much confirmed to rise within weeks.
I think Omega has risen in several other countries, not sure about PP, VC and ALS though.
US Dollars