U.S. to see price increases?

[Steve Toner]

Some interesting quotes from Marc Faber in this week's Barron's:
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><HR> Last year, incidentally, the South African rand was the strongest currency against the U.S. dollar. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><HR> If you believe that the bear market in commodities ended sometime between 2001 and 2002, you should be long currencies such as eth New Zealand dollar, which actually performed very well since the start of last year. That also holds for the Australian dollar and prbably the Canadian dollar. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

If he is correct, I would expect to see kit prices rising, as these (with the exception of Canada) are the countries that are the major kit producers.

[Alain Vanhollebeke]

With the dollar having dropped an average of over ten percent against most other currencies in the last 6 months,,,,,,,,,

this is probably going to have an effect on imported kits. [img]images/icons/frown.gif[/img] [img]images/icons/frown.gif[/img]

Unfortunately, this is pretty much out of everyone's control.

I don't see how any of the overseas manufacturers can ignore/absorb this, which leads me to think the prices from all of them will go up.

I think the best way for overseas manufacturers to advertise their prices, are in their own currencies. This way calculations can be made according to current exchange rates.