Ebay futures market?

By Ian

Ok, so it's a little different. Cut me some slack for having to find catchy titles.

Anyway...here's something that might be of interest to our Iraqi Dinar visitors: 1,000,000 dinar up for bid on Ebay.

From what I can tell, however, the current bid of $870 is about $163 over the current value of the dinar itself. Which, I'm guessing, indicates that someone is expecting things to get better. Unless someone gets about that much ownership value out of having a pile of dinar to lug around.

-- October 25, 2004 9:43 PM |

Comments

Kevin Brancato wrote:

1). Almost ALL these Dinar buyers have wild expectations of the future exchange rate.

2). Many traders fear that the large denominations (e.g. 25,000 Dinar) will be recalled by the Iraqi Central Bank, leaving them unable to cash in. (These folks have used the alternative of opening an account in a private Iraqi bank, like Warka Investment Bank. You send the bank dollars, they convert them into Dinar, loan your money to Iraqis, while giving you interest).

3). $870 for a million is actually a pretty good price for US delivery of Dinar--these range from $790, as I can find on a T&B Dinar Post google ad, to $1100 from portaliraq.com. Yes, it's a worse the exchange rate offered in the Middle East, but that's the middleman's cut. (The ebay offer is currently at 1150 dinar to the dollar, while the central bank is selling them at 1460 to the dollar or $685 for a million Dinar).

-- October 26, 2004 9:49 AM ∞

jenlarson wrote:

There are no current bids. Nor did I see any for the other dinars they offered.

However most currency sellers unless you go through your bank (use Versatel card if you go overseas) do quite a markup over official rates. Often 5 to 10%. These people do credit cards, another 2 or 3% markup, plus shipping, plus ebay overhead.

But no one seems to be buying.

-- October 26, 2004 12:17 PM ∞

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