Exchange rate looking good

**Katys Grandad** · 20-02-2005, 19:05

Jollifee - when were the $ and £ the same value? Certainly not in the past 25 years.

**Nostromo** · 20-02-2005, 19:34

<blockquote id="quote" class="ffs">quote:Originally posted by Katys Grandad
Jollifee - when were the $ and £ the same value? Certainly not in the past 25 years.
[/quote]

I think it was very close somewhere around 1988-9 soon after the property bust in the UK. I recall people saying that they were offering little more than $1 for £1 in the USA, but the situation did not last long.

20-02-2005, 20:42

I think you may be few years out, I was pretty certain that exchange rates for the dollar were up to almost $1 to the £1 in 1985, found these on an historical exchange rate site.

Exchange rates given are those for the first trade day of the year.

1971 - $1 = £0.41

1977 - $1 = £0.58

1985 - $1 = £0.87

1989 - $1 = £0.54

1995 - $1 = £0.63

1999 - $1 = £0.60

2004 - $1 = £0.56

Today - $1 = £0.52

[msnsmile2]

**bluebirds** · 20-02-2005, 22:40

Thats great news on the exchnage rate. I have been hanging on to buy Dollars ready for May. Definately shopping arpund for the best rate at the mo.

**Katys Grandad** · 20-02-2005, 23:51

Nice piece of research Lal - I still believe that there has never been parity between the £ & $.

As you have found out, it went close in 1985 but historically that was an all time low. If you go back to the 60's and 70's you will see that it was almost consistently at least $2/£1 and often better than that (from a sterling perspective). Go back a few years before and you will see $4/£1. Probably never to be repeated.

I have traded currency futures for a number of years and it has never been anywhere near parity during that time. Over recent years it has traded a range of about $1.35-$1.95. On that basis, it is currently a good rate for Dollar buyers.

20-02-2005, 23:56

I just remember 1989 as I was on Concorde and doing lots of New Yorks and doing all my shopping over there as it was so cheap, I even did my grocery shopping there!!![msnsmile2]

**andrewmckay5** · 21-02-2005, 00:18

I was at college in the States 1983 to '84. Had saved a fair amount of cash in the UK from holiday jobs to use for travelling only to get a rate of about $1-20 in the summer of '84[V]
Grant didn't go that far either and ended up with 2 jobs during term time.
Still had a great time though[msnwink]

On a serious note it does bring it home how fantastic the rates are at the moment and I'm quite happy with anything over $1-60.
andrew

**Robert5988** · 21-02-2005, 00:59

For the Anoraks amongst us the Federal Reserve publish a list of the £/$ exchange rate for every single day going back to 1971. It can be found at:

http://www.federalreserve.gov/releas...t/dat89_uk.htm

As KG states 1985 had the lowest rates(for the UK£) and on 26/02/1985 it reached its lowest ever point of UK£1 = US$1.0520 which is pretty close to parity.

The above was the commercial rate and the tourist rate is usually several cents lower. I seem to recall that the rate for tourists was at parity according to the newspapers.