I moved to San Francisco exactly 4 years ago. While I haven’t regretted it (and I should write more about the highlights in another post), it was a really bad financial investment.

The Dollar declined from about CHF 1.27 to CHF 0.99 in the last 4 years. That’s a 22% decline!

Let’s assume I converted CHF 10,000 to Dollars when I moved to the States. If I converted them back today I would only get CHF 7,787.

Similarly my salary is worth less in Swiss currency. In fact the Dollar decline has probably offset any raises I have received when measured in Swiss currency.

YHOO has done significantly better. The stock is up from around $23 on March 17, 2004 to $26.5 on March 17, 2008. This 15% increase does not offset the Dollar decline though. Plus I joined Yahoo! in July 2004 when the stock was at $30 which is about 10% higher than its current price.

Note: There is no correlation between my arrival in the States and the Dollar decline as far as I know.