Subject: Re: War, currencies and jurisdictions
ps - unrelated, why GBP specifically instead a basket of GBP, JPY, or EUR?

Various answers--
* It was in fact a blend of currencies, including Euros and Canadian dollars. It's just that the GBP chunk was biggest.
* Despite the rather dire economic news, the pound has held its value remarkably well since the credit crunch, and over the longer term has been remarkably stable, unlike the US dollar. The 2016 "Brexit drop" that one hears so much about was mostly just the unwinding of a pre-Brexit 2014-2015 temporary rise. If you look at the longer term, the trade weighted pound is about 7% higher than the very steady range 2009-2013, and has been rising slowly and steadily since 2016.
* Like most folks, I foolishly place undue emphasis on the currently available interest rate when choosing which currency to hold. The available rate was around 4.3% at almost any duration. IB is paying about 3.7% on cash deposits. Both of those figures dwarf the Euro equivalents.
* I have some UK related dealings, so the choice of currency didn't start from a clean sheet

Jim