Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Threequalseven]

I've only been here for around one year, but this is the highest I've seen the USD to KRW exchange rate. One dollar is somewhere between 1156 and 1161 won now. Does anyone have insight on this who could put it in layman's terms, and what it might suggest for the months to come?

[young_clinton]

Looks like its going to go back up again, that is it's going to get weaker.

[World Traveler]

http://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=KRW&to=USD&view=1Y
Wow, that sucks. North Korea is making threats again. That could be part of the reason.

[nicwr2002]

Really?? It was 1000 won to .90 cents a few months back and it was 1000won for .89 cents for a good while. I just checked it and it's now at 1000won for .86 cents...ouch...not good for sending money home again. Still better than the .79 cents last year I believe it was.

[World Traveler]

Check out the graph my friend. It was 93 cents just a few weeks ago. The last time it was 79 cents was in 2010 after the Cheonan incident.

[ttompatz]

Pray it doesn't hit 68 cents like it did at the end of 2008 (1466 won=$1).

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[javis]

It's pretty awesome for someone who gets paid in dollars and pays bills in won

[nicwr2002]

[tran.huongthu]

It moves in relation to the US stock market. So if the market stabilizes and then proceeds to go back up then yes the Korean Won will probably go back up to .90 to the dollar. It has been hit really hard lately though which sucks for getting paid at the end of the month!

[Yaya]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-06-20/korean-bond-yields-touch-11-month-high-won-slides-on-bernanke.html

[Airborne9]

The Dollar rose sharply against a lot of other currencies too, it wasn't just against the Korean Won, not that I am arguing with the article above or anything.


In the short term, you have to accept that these things happen. It goes up and goes down. You lose out sometimes and you gain at other times. There was a thread about the performance of the won against the dollar 3 months ago and there will be another one in 3 months time.

Long term, I don't know. They say the Korean won will be one of the stronger currencies of the next 10 years.

[Zyzyfer]

Won was doing very well a few months back. Abe introduced his Japanese QE plan around the same time the won was approaching 1050. That was seen as capable of currency manipulation and the BoK set 1050 as the benchmark to start driving the won down. It took a few days for it to go to 1090 or so.

Then we had the NK threats, that drove it down to 1110. It mostly stayed at that level since then, since a cheap won is good for exports, there is no drive to mess with it.

US Fed announcement, as Yaya's link references, slammed stock markets all over and buoyed the dollar, this was just last week so the markets are still hurting. It may correct a bit in the next few weeks, the Fed's announcement that they would taper back QE was a huge announcement, so markets will probably be shaky for a while.

[hogwonguy1979]

its cyclical, the markets took a harsh reaction to Bernacke's remarks to ending of cheap money. Markets were overbought anyhow, the economic growth and job numbers don't support the values of the stocks etc.

figure the equilibrium level for the won to be around 1130, heck thats where the gov't would like it based on what i've been reading

in regards to the north, those factors are already figured into the prices of stocks and the dollar.

nothing to worry about, if you were sending back dollars this week i may wait a couple of days but thats it

[goreality]

Exchange in a few months when it calms down unless you are desperate.

[tran.huongthu]