On the lighter side of FX trading, we’re pleased to present an interesting analysis put out by international money transfer firm FXcompared.com with this weekend’s release of the latest James Bond flick SPECTRE.
James Bond has always traveled the globe fighting villains and he’s always extremely well equipped with gadgets while staying at some of the world’s best hotels. FXcompared has tracked the various travels of James Bond since 1962 and has looked at the pound vs the dollar, as well as the pound vs the Euro since inception. They’ve found that of all the Bonds, Sean Connery benefitted from the best pounds to dollar rates, meaning that his pounds stretched that little bit farther at the baccarat table – handy when he was facing down the baddies! Poor Tim Dalton gets the wrong side of movie reviews AND currencies….
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FXcompared Intelligence Brief – The Cost of James Bond’s Jet-setting Luxury Lifestyle
Connery beats Craig when it comes to comparing Bond’s luxury lifestyle by the rates
Pound vs. Dollar
We listed all the movies and years in which James Bond movies took place in the US, reviewed the historical rates between the GBP and USD for these years and found that the best rate was 2.80 in 1965’s Thunderball starring Sean Connery. The worst rate of 1.30 was in 1985’s A View to a Kill with Timothy Dalton. See these rates compared in the table below.
Pound vs. Euro
We compared the GBP and EUR the same way. Bond has only visited Europe three times since the Euro was issued in 1999. See the results below.
Other currencies
In 2015’s Spectre, Bond will be in Mexico, Italy, Austria and Morocco. Italy and Austria are two countries where numerous previous Bond films have taken place and other currencies we could compare.
Comment from FXcompared MD, Daniel Webber:
We can debate whether Sean Connery is a better Bond than Daniel Craig but when it comes to the spending power of the pound on their global travels, Connery definitely had the edge. If current trends continue, the pound looks more likely to strengthen against the euro compared to the dollar suggesting the next Bond should stay closer to home.