If I take £100 and change it to Japanese Yen then to US$ then to Russian Rouble then to Zimbabwe Dollars then

Question

back to £'s will I make a profit or a loss?

Answer 1

loss

Answer 2

Loss.

Answer 3

loss as the banks/bureau charge u for the conversions

Answer 4

It depends on how long it takes you to do all those exchanges, and what the currencies do between each transaction.  If you switch to yen, and the value of the currency pops up 10% overnight before you switch to US dollars, you probably will make money.

But if you do all of these exchanges in the same day, and you use standard commercial money changers, you'll lose money.  They always charge a small percentage to make the exchange.  I'm just guessing, but I think you'd probably end up with maybe  ÃƒÂ‚£85-90 by the time you finish.

Answer 5

Assuming you have no transactions costs along the way you'll end up with the same amount minus the time to complete it.  In reality you'll have a loss even when done instantaneously because of the transactions costs associated with those exchanges.  You could also get stuck with just Zimbabwe dollars as they lose value every day so nobody really wants them.  I think Britain doesn't even trade with them anymore.  You'd probably have to go through Mozambique or something.