Readings in Money and Banking: Selected and AdaptedPhillips, Chester Arthur
General
Readings in Money and Banking: Selected and Adapted
Phillips, Chester Arthur
Banks and banking; Banks and banking -- United States; Money
The ability to draw finance-bills of this kind often puts a house
disposed to take chances with the movement of the exchange market into
line for very considerable profit possibilities. Suppose, for instance,
that the manager of a house here figures that there is going to be a
sharp break in foreign exchange. He, therefore, sells a line of
ninety-day bills, putting himself technically short of the exchange
market and banking on the chance of being able to buy in his "cover"
cheaply when it comes time for him to cover. In the meantime he has the
use of the money he derived from the sale of the "nineties" to do with
as he pleases, and if he has figured the market aright, it may not cost
him any more per pound to buy his "cover" than he realized from the sale
of the long bills. In which case he would have had the use of the money
for the whole three months practically free of interest.
It is plain speculating in exchange--there is no getting away from it,
and yet this practice of selling finance-bills gives such an opportunity
to the exchange manager shrewd enough to read the situation aright to
make money, that many of the big houses go in for it to a large extent.
During the summer, for instance, if the outlook is for big crops, the
situation is apt to commend itself to this kind of operation. Money in
the summer months is apt to be low and exchange high, affording a good
basis on which to sell exchange. Then, if the expected crops
materialize, large amounts of exchange drawn against exports will come
into the market, forcing down rates and giving the operator who has
previously sold his long bills an excellent chance to cover them
profitably as they come due.
VI. ARBITRAGING IN EXCHANGE.
Arbitraging in exchange--the buying by a New York banker, for instance,
through the medium of the London market, of exchange drawn on Paris--is
another broad and profitable field for the operations of the expert
foreign exchange manager. Take, for example, a time when exchange on
Paris is more plentiful in London than in New York--a shrewd New York
exchange manager needing a draft on Paris might well secure it in London
rather than in his home city.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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