It's late on a Friday night in Zürich, but currencies are still being traded actively. As of 2 minutes ago, my favorite currency exchange site, www.xe.com, is reporting this rather amazing figure:
1.0000 USD = 0.9988 CHF or 1.0000 CHF = 1.0012 USD
That's right, folks: one US greenback is now worth less than one Swiss Franc coin.
Of course, average people like us won't get this exchange rate; this is the "mid-market rate", which is the average of the "buy" rate and "sell" rate used by firms that exchange very large amounts of currency. The rate most of us would get will be less, well, perhaps 'beneficial' might be a decent word for the idea that no matter whether one is selling dollars for francs or vice versa, you wouldn't get the amount of the other currency you'd expect given the rates I quoted above.
But still, this is quite something. As recently as December 2007, the exchange rate was 1.000 USD = 1.125 CHF and one year ago, it was 1.000 USD = 1.213 USD.
One of our favorite fellow expat bloggers, the Global Librarian of Expat-Experience, wrote in a recent post that it might not be the best time for Americans to be heading across The Pond for vacation - sorry, Auntie Geek. But if you're paid in Euro or Francs, it sure is a nice time to go shopping in the States. Hmmm, maybe it's time to buy that unlocked iPhone in the States, after all.
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