Dollar dropping

I still don't know if I am paying 18.40 to buy pesos, or getting 18.40 when I sell/trade them in. That's important.

Jreboll wrote:In April the dollar index was about 103 so the trend is down. That means that imported items are starting to cost more and we’ll start seeing more inflation.

Not true.  This forum is in Mexico and WE will pay less for imported merchandise from the US.

ComputerGuy wrote:I still don't know if I am paying 18.40 to buy pesos, or getting 18.40 when I sell/trade them in. That's important.

If the spot is 18.40 or whatever, figure about a peso or a peso. 50, up or down for the buy/sell price and you will be very close.  All the banks are little different, some more, some less, if you are cashing checks or trading currencies.  ATM´s using visa or MC cards and rates, tend to be closer if you don´t fall for their (the banks) local exchange rate they offer up for the uninformed.  
Bank wire transfers and other money transfer agencies vary a lot too, and some have high fees but some foreign banks reimburse their clients the fees when they send money to Mexico.

Ah, the spot exchange rate, thank you. I tend to look at the rates in the window on my bank, which determines what I am going to do with my US dollars. Can run into quite a bit of coin. And in fact rates in Guad can be even better than here sometimes.

ComputerGuy wrote:Ah, the spot exchange rate, thank you. I tend to look at the rates in the window on my bank, which determines what I am going to do with my US dollars. Can run into quite a bit of coin. And in fact rates in Guad can be even better than here sometimes.

Even after deducting for your time and gasoline?  
Bank chains are the same exchange rates in all of Jalisco, probably the country.
Independent Casa de Cambios, are probably better in GDL as they handle more volume.  Trouble is, large amounts of cash are not accepted in many business transactions such as real estate or new vehicle purchases. For business expenses over 2K, you have pay by check in order to get the factura deduction for ISR credit and the emisor gets penalized for cash deposits unless he stuffs the receipts into his mattress.

Drug cartels don´t concern themselves about any of this........

If you are in Guad anyway, yes. And the chains may offer the same, but different chains offer different buy/sell rates. And yes, several times have gotten better rates for goodly sums of cash. Don't recall where; was not important. But I don't care about the spot rate anyway: I want to know exactly what I will get on any given day.

If you are buying pesos, Intercam and Multiva are usually better than CI Banco and all are better than Actinver. Those are the only banks I follow and Monex.
CI has lower cost fees.

Yep.

Gold is not rising. It peaked August 5, at $363.86. It has been falling ever since and is down to $303.38. Prior to Covid, the index was $253.45. Gold went up because of the pandemic (panic buying raising the price of gold). Investors always flock to gold when there is some world crisis going on. Gold peaked at $618.03 Sept 2, 2011. We are a long way from that level and probably will not see that level again in our lifetimes.

US dollar has been devalued by the monetary policies of the last two presidential administrations. Print more, print more (quantitative easing parts 1 thru 6). Politicians don't want to rock the boat. A day of reckoning is coming.

RoyD

BTW, I am quoting the HUI Gold Index.

RoyD

RoyD wrote:BTW, I am quoting the HUI Gold Index.

RoyD

That Gold Index is composed of more than just the price of gold, which in itself has risen from US$1,520/oz at the beginning of 2020 to US$1,881/oz today. Gold Price Chart

I agree with ComputerGuy. Hardly anyone quotes exchange rates properly. The Guadalajara Reporter on 17 December published 16.91 buy pesos, 19.81 sell pesos. Most people take a short cut and talk about what the average exchange rate is (18.3-18.4), which may be meaningful to economists but is not applicable everyday transactions.

The spot gold index, historically, is a reflection of the HUI index with different numbers.

All time high - Feb 1980  $2190.86
Next low      - March 2001 $388.50
Next high     - Feb 2012  $2023.11
Next low      - Nov 2015  $1163.84
Next high     - July 2020 $2058.40
We have been in decline until this past month where it has rallied to $1888.89 (12/18).

Will gold test that high from 2020? Who knows? If we had all invested heavily in gold in March 2001, we would be extremely wealthy now.

RoyD

Jreboll wrote:For many years it was 12.50 pesos to the dollar. I was working in Guadalajara when the bottom fell out on the peso(around 1976?)
We panicked and went back to live NOB.

In reality it is now about 20,000 of those 1976 pesos to the dollar.

The true value for me is how much labor, services, or products, can I buy with my money, whatever it is.  What else do you need money for?....Practice counting???  Mexican pesos are worth a lot more in Mexico than say, they are in the E.U.

slainte39 wrote:The true value for me is how much labor, services, or products, can I buy with my money, whatever it is.  What else do you need money for?....Practice counting???  Mexican pesos are worth a lot more in Mexico than say, they are in the E.U.

Hence "The Big Mac Index" popularized by The Economist weekly news magazine to compare the purchasing power of different currencies.  

A Big Mac hamburger at a typical McDonald's restaurant costs MXN 61 in Mexico and USD 5.71 in the USA.

If you head north of the border with pesos in your pocket and get hungry, you're going have to shell out 115 pesos to get the 5.71 dollars you need to buy yourself a sandwich.  Therefore, Mexican pesos are worth 53% more to you in Mexico than they are in the USA.

Just to be clear, that's a Big Mac Meal, not just the burger.

What does a "Big Mac Meal" consist of?  Is that like the Mexican combo? Fries and a soda or what?  Can´t imagine what else it could be.