The Loonie soars

[Flubber]

It was not so long ago I remember the jokes about the "Canadian peso"-- heck I made some of them but this is an indicator of relative economic performance

Loonie soars to new heights
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Font: * * * * Herald News Services
Published: Tuesday, January 31, 2006
Currency - The Canadian dollar, pumped up by high energy prices, closed at a new 14-year high of 87.24 cents US Monday, great news for Canadians heading south for a holiday, but adding to the challenges of struggling domestic manufacturers.

"The Canadian dollar flexed its muscle, appreciating relative to most major currencies," noted RBC economist John Anania, crediting oil prices which are near a five-month high, and solid non-energy commodity prices, including gold.

The strength of energy and other commodity prices was also credited with giving Canadian stocks another boost, with the benchmark S&P/TSX posting a near triple digit gain of more than 90 points to close at a new record high of 11,947.

The loonie, which reached a high of 87.49 cents US during the day, eased off in the wake of news that factory prices slipped 0.3 per cent last month

Add this to story after story I am seeing about worker shortages and its boomtime for the Canadian economy at the moment-- perhaps we will even start to import some Americans

[DanS]

Crazy, isn't it!?

[Flubber]

Originally posted by DanS
Crazy, isn't it!?

Surprising, in a historical sense since it was only 10-15 years ago that our dollar was in the 60s and people were actually talking about a 50 cent dollar. WE had record deficets and indicators were negative.

Not surprising upon analysis since we have still have a large commodity base to our economy and several of those resources have seen prices trending upward fior years. This allowed us to get our fiscal house in order such that we can drop taxes while still paying down debt.


There was a time when the Canadian dollar was worth more than the American. Until the current trends reverse, I would have to see that again as a long-term possibility

[Ben Kenobi]

I don't know. The dollar is about where it should be now, after being undervalued for so long. Our productivity is quite a bit lower then the American's, so once our dollar gets to the point where it is close to the US dollar, it will make more sense to hire Americans then it will to hire Canadians.

[Wezil]

Originally posted by Flubber

There was a time when the Canadian dollar was worth more than the American. Until the current trends reverse, I would have to see that again as a long-term possibility

...cue the insecure Canadians....

[KrazyHorse]

it was only 10-15 years ago that our dollar was in the 60s

More like 4 years ago.

[KrazyHorse]

IIRC the low was ~62.4

[Flubber]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse

it was only 10-15 years ago that our dollar was in the 60s

More like 4 years ago.

You are right-- I was just thinking of the trauma of my visit to the US in the early 90s when I actually changed up some money at those rates-- ouch

[KrazyHorse]

I remember my relief at the runup in the CAD through the early part of 2003, since I was going to be changing ~4000CAD to USD in mid 2003.

[Odin]

The US$ has nowhere to go but down.

[KrazyHorse]

Wow. You're really good at predicting things after they happen, aren't you, Odin.

"The USD will drop"

Duh. I was saying that in 2002. Now it's valued near correctly.

"Oil will rise".

No ****, 2-3 years ago. But now it's got a lot of downside risk (more than upside, in my opinion)

You might want to start predicting things before they happen instead of simply drawing the latest tangent line and extrapolating...

[KrazyHorse]

OMFG! TECH STOCKS ARE OVERVALUED! I PREDICT A MASSIVE DECLINE IN THE NASDAQ!

THE MARKET IS FLOODED WITH NEW MONEY FROM PEOPLE BUYING ON MARGIN! ANY SELL-OFF WILL TRIGGER A GREAT DEPRESSION!

TULIPS CAN'T BE WORTH 600$ AN OUNCE, CAN THEY? I PREDICT A CRASH!

[Asher]

I predict GOOG and AAPL will go down more.

[KrazyHorse]

What is GOOG at right now?

The ~480$ it was going for a week ago or so was too high. Probably get into the 200s over a couple of years.

[joncha]

Stop picking on Odin. It's not his fault he's so clueless.