Why certain currencies are considered safe havens in times of turmoil
It's a combination of neutrality, economic power, economic freedom, a history of stability, and tradition. In the case of the Japanese yen, it's obviously economic power that is the determining factor, as Japan is the world's third largest economy. Switzerland, on the other hand, is only the 19th largest economy, but ranks very high in all the other criteria. "Switzerland is presumably where one moves the money in case of an apocalypse; although, they have lost some of that appeal now with the tax reporting to the EU and USA. Switzerland has a very old, stable banking industry, but this isn't the only appeal.  Their reputation for safeguarding money, be it despot or Nazi, is most of the attraction.  Low to no taxes is the second.  Also, there isn't much financially illegal despite recent changes.  Put that all together, and if a country is about to go to hell in handbasket because it borrowed too much or goes to war while Switzerland stays stable and very strict about paying depositors, those residents are going to try to move as much money to Switzerland as possible before its confiscated for one reason or another, sending the CHF up. Japan is a different duck.   They have persistently ~0% inflation thus low nominal and real interest rates.  With them, the so-called ""cash & carry trade"" or more ubiquitous ""carry trade"" dominates.  Many investors choose to borrow in JPY to buy investments denominated in other currencies.  If the countries of those other currencies are about to take their residents' money or go to war, putting money at jeopardy, the residents doing the carry trading will try to unwind their levered investments to reduce risk, sending the JPY up."
As a beginner to cryptocurrencies, I would recommend that you sign up for an account at gemini.com. Once you get verified - and understand, that getting verified will take multiple weeks, unfortunately, considering the large amount of traffic that these web apps still have to scale for - you will be able to make daily deposits of $500 to buy either bitcoin (BTC) or ethereum (ETH). Any other currencies (altcoins, usually built on another network or entirely separate networks) will require you to sign up for an altcoin exchange like Kraken or Poloniex.  Speaking of which, another user that commented on this post mentioned Kraken, but the issue with Kraken is that it only allows you to buy currencies using other currency, which is why I recommend gemini (you could even use coinbase, but coinbase is EXTREMELY popular and it takes forever to get verified). After purchasing crypto, you can transfer to other accounts on other exchanges to speculate on altcoin.  Please be secure when using these exchanges. Consider also using a wallet (I personally recommend exodus.io), as many exchanges suffer from occasional attacks.  As for /u/beat_tapes questioning your motives, I totally agree with that sentiment, as no one REALLY knows what's going to happen tomorrow, which is why I implore you to evaluate your financial situation and only speculate with what you're entirely comfortable with losing. You're entering casino doors, and yeah, I'm a personal believer that at this casino you'll win big, but it's still a gamble. Just keep that in mind. "Here are my reasons as to why bonds are considered to be a reasonable investment. While it is true that, on average over a sufficiently long period of time, stocks do have a high expected return, it is important to realize that bonds are a different type of financial instrument that stocks, and have features that are attractive to certain types of investors. The purpose of buying bonds is to convert a lump sum of currency into a series of future cash flows. This is in and of itself valuable to the issuer because they would prefer to have the lump sum today, rather than at some point in the future. So we generally don't say that we've ""lost"" the money, we say that we are purchasing a series of future payments, and we would only do this if it were more valuable to us than having the money in hand. Unlike stocks, where you are compensated with dividends and equity to take on the risks and rewards of ownership, and unlike a savings account (which is much different that a bond), where you are only being paid interest for the time value of your money while the bank lends it out at their risk, when you buy a bond you are putting your money at risk in order to provide financing to the issuer. It is also important to realize that there is a much higher risk that stocks will lose value, and you have to compare the risk-adjusted return, and not the nominal return, for stocks to the risk-adjusted return for bonds, since with investment-grade bonds there is generally a very low risk of default. While the returns being offered may not seem attractive to you individually, it is not reasonable to say that the returns offered by the issuer are insufficient in general, because both when the bonds are issued and then subsequently traded on a secondary market (which is done fairly easily), they function as a market. That is to say that sellers always want a higher price (resulting in a lower return), and buyers always want to receive a higher return (requiring a lower price). So while some sellers and buyers will be able to agree on a mutually acceptable price (such that a transaction occurs), there will almost always be some buyers and sellers who also do not enter into transactions because they are demanding a lower/higher price. The fact that a market exists indicates that enough investors are willing to accept the returns that are being offered by sellers. Bonds can be helpful in that as a class of assets, they are less risky than stocks. Additionally, bonds are paid back to investors ahead of equity, so in the case of a failing company or public entity, bondholders may be paid even if stockholders lose all their money. As a result, bonds can be a preferred way to make money on a company or government entity that is able to pay its bills, but has trouble generating any profits.  Some investors have specific reasons why they may prefer a lower risk over time to maximizing their returns. For example, a government or pension fund or a university may be aware of financial payments that they will be required to make in a particular year in the future, and may purchase bonds that mature in that year. They may not be willing to take the risk that in that year, the stock market will fall, which could force them to reduce their principal to make the payments. Other individual investors may be close to a significant life event that can be predicted, such as college or retirement, and may not want to take on the risk of stocks. In the case of very large investors such as national governments, they are often looking for capital preservation to hedge against inflation and forex risk, rather than to ""make money"". Additionally, it is important to remember that until relatively recently in the developed world, and still to this day in many developing countries, people have been willing to pay banks and financial institutions to hold their money, and in the context of the global bond market, there are many people around the world who are willing to buy bonds and receive a very low rate of return on T-Bills, for example, because they are considered a very safe investment due to the creditworthiness of the USA, as well as the stability of the dollar, especially if inflation is very high in the investor's home country. For example, I once lived in an African country where inflation was 60-80% per year. This means if I had $100 today, I could buy $100 worth of goods, but by next year, I might need $160 to buy the same goods I could buy for $100 today. So you can see why simply being able to preserve the value of my money in a bond denominated in USA currency would be valuable in that case, because the alternative is so bad. So not all bondholders want to be owners or make as much money as possible, some just want a safe place to put their money. Also, it is true for both stocks and bonds that you are trading a lump sum of money today for payments over time, although for stocks this is a different kind of payment (dividends), and you only get paid if the company makes money. This is not specific to bonds. In most other cases when a stock price appreciates, this is to reflect new information not previously known, or earnings retained by the company rather than paid out as dividends. Most of the financial instruments where you can ""make"" money immediately are speculative, where two people are betting against each other, and one has to lose money for the other to make money. Again, it's not reasonable to say that any type of financial instrument is the ""worst"". They function differently, serve different purposes, and have different features that may or may not fit your needs and preferences. You seem to be saying that you simply don't find bond returns high enough to be attractive to you. That may be true, since different people have different investment objectives, risk tolerance, and preference for having money now versus more money later. However, some of your statements don't seem to be supported by facts. For example, retail banks are not highly profitable as an industry, so they are not making thousands of times what they are paying you. They also need to pay all of their operating expenses, as well as account for default risk and inflation, out of the different between what they lend and what they pay to savings account holders. Also, it's not reasonable to say that bonds are worthless, as I've explained. The world disagrees with you. If they agreed with you, they would stop buying bonds, and the people who need financing would have to lower bond prices until people became interested again. That is part of how markets work. In fact, much of the reason that bond yields are so low right now is that there has been such high global demand for safe investments like bonds, especially from other nations, such that bond issues (especially the US government) have not needed to pay high yields in order to raise money." Some of the factors that will act on house prices are: There will likely be a recession in that country, which will lower incomes and probably lower housing prices. It will likely be harder to get credit in that country so that too will increase demand and depress demand for housing (cf the USA in 2010.) If Greece leaves the Euro, that will possibly depress future economic growth, through decreased trade and investment, and possibly decreased transfer payments. Eventually the budget will need to come back into balanced which also is likely to push down house prices. In some European countries (most famously Spain) there's been a lot of speculative building which is likely to hang over the market. Both countries have governance and mandate problems, and who knows how long or how much turmoil it will take to sort that out. Some of these factors may already be priced in, and perhaps prices are already near what will turn out to be the low. In the Euro zone you have the nearly unprecedented situation of the countries being very strongly tied into another currency, so the typical exchange-rate movements that played out in Argentina cannot act here.  A lot will depend on whether the countries are bailed out, or leave the Euro (and if so how), etc.  Typically inflation has been a knock-on effect of the exchange rate moves so it's hard to see if that will happen in Greece. Looking back from 2031, buying in southern Europe in 2011 may turn out to be a good investment.  But I don't think you could reasonably call it a safe defensive investment. Its so funny to see Americans arguing about how terrible the minimum wage would be. I'm sure all those poor billionaires/millionaires cant afford to pay their workers a few euros extra per hour. Maybe it's because all their money is in safe havens? While it's possible that the dollar could lose its grip as the global currency, it's unlikely that it will be quickly supplanted by another.  The world might simply see a a paradigm shift towards the use of whatever currency suits whichever counterparty at any given moment. Many people think money velocity is the most important thing in the economy that is why war is *good* for the economy.  But during WWII the USA and all others countries had rationing.  The whole reason to have a better economy is so we can live better lives; not to put rationed on but we can buy.  After WWII where peoples lives better?  No we(US) had 418,500 dead, many wounded and many years of rationing.  Same apples to Hurricane Harvey families had homes and jobs.  Now they have nothing.  Just because they are spending retirement fund on rebuilding doesn't mean their lives are better.    So yes there is more velocity in money in where Hurricane Harvey hit.  But it is happening for the wrong reasons. "This is a speculative question and there's no ""correct"" answer, but there are definitely some highly likely outcomes. Let's assume that the United States defaults on it's debt. It can be guaranteed that it will lose its AAA rating. Although we don't know what it will drop to, we know it WILL be AA or lower.  A triple-A rating implies that the issuer will never default, so it can offer lower rates since there is a guarantee of safety there.People will demand a higher yield for the lower perceived security, so treasury yield will go up.  The US dollar, or at least forex rates, will almost certainly fall. Since US treasuries will no longer be a safe haven, the dollar will no longer be the safe currency it once was, and so the dollar will fall. The US stock market (and international markets) will also have a strong fall because so many institutions, financial or otherwise, invest in treasuries so when treasuries tumble and the US loses triple-A, investments will be hurt and the tendency is for investors to overreact so it is almost guaranteed that the market will drop sharply. Financial stocks and companies that invest in treasuries will be hurt the most. A notable exception is nations themselves. For example, China holds over $1 trillion in treasuries and a US default will hurt their value, but the Yuan will also appreciate with respect to the dollar. Thus, other nations will benefit and be hurt from a US default. Now many people expect a double-dip recession - worse than the 08/09 crisis - if the US defaults. I count myself a member of this crowd. Nonetheless, we cannot say with certainty whether or not there will be another recession or even a depression - we can only say that a recession is a strong possibility. So basically, let's pray that Washington gets its act together and raises the ceiling, or else we're in for bad times. And lastly, a funny quote :) I could end the deficit in 5 minutes.   You just pass a law that says that   anytime there is a deficit of more   than 3% of GDP all sitting members of   congress are ineligible for   reelection.   - Warren Buffett" Because people trade currency in exchange for goods and services. They can easily prevent competition by violent means or by having control of the market through market share. Price can be controlled by the threat of super low prices in order to drive out competing businesses.