How do I invest in something other than the US Dollar?

[corey r.]

If I wanted to move to the Yen, Euro, peso, Bathroom tokens, Mons Venus coupons,etc... How do I go about doing that? Is ForeEx the only option? Do companies such as Vangaurd offer Currency Funds/ Money Markets?

[Jeff240sx]

FOREX.

Mutual Funds usually buy stocks in the foreign companies, and take percentages per quarter, plus percentages of profits. It's good for a 401k or other long-term instrument.

You sound like a short-timer... so I'd play in FOREX. Just watch your leverage, it can get out of control pretty easily.

Oh.. or you can buy precious metals. Zero leverage, pretty safe.

[MianoSM]

https://personal.vanguard.com/us/funds/etf/byname

Or you can go to the Airport and get it in hand.

[Josh]

Forex, Fidelity, etc are all market makers and will stack a fee on top of the price of the shares. Mutual funds can be very tricky, especially foreign, you have to read over the prospectus very carefully. Many have their holdings hedged to US investments and US Dollars. You also have to see where these companies are exposed...be it the US consumer or the boom that's going to take place outside the US.

You can cut out the domestic market maker fee's by going to a firm that does direct executions on foreign exchanges. There are also many good companies abroad that do not have ADR's, so you will not see them listed on the American Exchange.

just peeked at the Total World ETF...

Primary Investment Strategies
The Fund employs a “passive management” —or indexing—investment approach
designed to track the performance of the FTSE® All-World Index, a free-float-adjusted,
market-capitalization-weighted index designed to measure the market performance of
large- and mid-capitalization stocks of companies located around the world. The Index
includes approximately 2,800–2,900 stocks of companies located in 47 countries, including
both developed and emerging markets. As of October 31, 2008, the largest markets
covered in the Index were the United States, Japan, the United Kingdom, France, and
Germany (which made up approximately 46%, 9%, 9%, 5%, and 3%, respectively, of the
Index’s market capitalization). The Fund typically holds approximately 2,000 stocks in its
target Index (covering nearly 99% of the Index’s total market capitalization) and a
representative sample of the remaining stocks. The Fund holds a broadly diversified
collection of securities that, in the aggregate, approximates the full Index in terms of
key characteristics. These key characteristics include industry weightings, country
weightings, and market capitalization, as well as certain financial measures, such as
price/earnings ratio and dividend yield. For additional information on the Fund’s
investment strategies, please see More on the Fund and ETF Shares.

46% of the fund is in US investments....not near enough exposure abroad, and far too much here.

[_Chris_]

www.babypips.com

Good site for learning all things FOREX