Yes OK, it’s the name of one of my favourite, locally-trained racehorses, but this month ‘Money Matters’ is not off in search of gambling winnings. Well, maybe it is when I come to think about it, but not in the conventional sense of our four-legged friends at Prestbury Park.

This month ‘Money Matters’ examines the risks attached to dealings in foreign currency. I have just returned from a busy trip to the US and in my normal style I left currency buying until the very last minute. Well, at the airport actually!

Plan early or be lucky!
The dollar/sterling exchange rate had already moved against me in the short time that the currency market in the UK has had to react to the result of the General Election. But I had to be picked up from the floor when I was told the going rate at the airport was over 1.80. I waited and sorted it out when I got there.

It set me thinking – how much money is made or lost simply by the timing of a foreign currency transaction? Anyone going on holiday is affected, as are all of our businesses that trade abroad. It’s that important to some of them that they employ full-time staff to manage their exposure. They’re not always right, mind you – the markets didn’t predict the election result any better than the pollsters did.

So, what to do? Plan early (do as I say not as I do obviously!) and make sure that there is a good cushion available to you should the movement be adverse. Or maybe simply be lucky!