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Canadian dollar will Continue to Suffer from the U.S. Slowdown!

Written by: Sean Hyman

Article Overview: Here's why the Canadian dollar will continue to suffer this year. It will probably push the USD/CAD exchange rate above 1.30. Find out how to profit from it.

Canadian dollar will Continue to Suffer from the U.S. Slowdown!

Have you ever seen someone make a mistake and not only do they suffer for it but someone else does as a result also? Well, this is exactly what’s happening to Canada right now.

You see, most of last year, you could say that the Canadian dollar was falling because of falling commodity prices. Since Canada exports so many widely used commodities like oil and lumber, when prices fall, so do their profit margins. It costs them about the same amount to produce the product but what they can get for it in the market is determined by where those commodities are trading at the time.


Last Year the Commodities Crash Killed the Canadian dollar. This Year it’s the U.S. Economic Crash that’s Killing Them!

So that was what hurt them much of last year. Now we roll into 2009, and they get killed by another dynamic: the increasing slowdown of the U.S. economy!

For three months in a row now, the U.S. economy has shed around 600,000 jobs or more back to back! The unemployment rate seems to be going somewhat parabolic at this point. It jumped from 7.6% previously to 8.1% now.

On top of this, to buffer the blow of the slowdown, Canada’s central bank had to lower interest rates once again (to 0.50%) which put it at the lowest their interest rates have EVER been!

While this is a dynamic that will eventually be good for their economy, it hurts their currency right now for sure.

They also stated that they may implore “Quantitative Easing”. What the heck is that? Well, in simple terms it means that they will print money out of thin air and load up the banks with so much excess cash that they are more likely to lend money and thus spur economic growth.

While that may eventually give their economy a boost, it kills their currency. Why? Look at it this way. Anytime something becomes more abundant, it becomes worth less. Anytime something becomes scarce, it becomes more valuable. (This is why a Corvette in the 1960’s may have gone for $3,000 then and would sell for $30,000 to $60,000 today. These days, they are scarce…yet they weren’t back then).

So when the market is flooded with more money (Canadian dollars), that money gets devalued and is worth less. Therefore it takes more (Canadian) dollars to buy the same amount of goods.

The U.S. is Printing Money too, but Right Now they are Saved Because they are the World’s Reserve Currency (and thus a “Safe Haven”).

Now, you may say but isn’t the U.S. doing the same thing? After all, their economy is slowing down. They are printing money too.

I would say, while I won’t deny that point, the U.S. dollar presently benefits from what is called the “safe haven bid”. What does that mean? It means that investors all over the globe are running to the safety of the U.S. dollar because it’s the world’s reserve currency right now.

In other words, if there’s one currency on the face of the earth that you are most likely to keep and continue to use, it’s the one that most of the goods are priced in all over the world. For example, gold, oil, wheat, soybeans, lumber, etc. are all priced in U.S. dollars.

Therefore in crazy times like this, it enjoys the benefit of being the world’s reserve currency. However, once the global economy finally does return to normal, then this “benefit” will suddenly go away and the dollar will just have to stand on its own fundamentals once again. We all know that once that happens, the buck doesn’t have that much to stand on. Therefore, the “dollar party” may come to an end ONCE the global economy normalizes.

In the mean time, Canada’s currency (and economy) will continue to suffer as the U.S. lays off more workers and continues to slow down. Remember, they derive about 79% of their exports from the U.S. That’s huge! In fact, it’s so huge…it’s the largest trading relationship between two countries according to Canada’s trade department.

This really is huge, because the U.S. hasn’t had three back to back months of layoffs this big since they started keeping records on it back in 1939. So from at least as far as our records go back, this has never happened on this scale before!

So when you add all of this up, you come up with the fact that the U.S. dollar has a high probability of continuing to rise against the Canadian dollar. So with that said, I think you may find the USD/CAD rate to break the 1.30 barrier in the coming weeks to months.


Sean Hyman

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Article Tags: canada exports, canadian dollar, commodities, commodity prices, corvette, currency, economic crash, economic growth, excess cash, interest rates, lumber, mistake, profit margins, quantitative easing, s central, slowdown, thin air, three months, unemployment rate, what the heck



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Re: Meltdown in the Financial Markets - [quote="Kevin":3lnvm7h2]If the US is simply creating fake/"funny" money with their bailout, then I wonder why the Canadian dollar has dropped so badly? One Canadian dollar is suddenly worth only about $0.84 US now. It doesn't make sense to me.[/quote:3lnvm7h2] The Canadian dollar has dropped to about $0.80 USD... what kind of holiday shopping season will it be this year if this trend continues?
Re: Meltdown in the Financial Markets - If the US is simply creating fake/"funny" money with their bailout, then I wonder why the Canadian dollar has dropped so badly? One Canadian dollar is suddenly worth only about $0.84 US now. It doesn't make sense to me.
Canadian Entrepreneurs...let's chat.... - I thought it would be nice to gather up all the Canadian entrepreneurs on one topic to discuss how everyone is getting along. I just realized Evan is Canadian as well! Hope he's able to join the conversation. Look forward to the chat. By the way, I'm in BC. Phil
Re: How do you create a million dollar idea? - Gosh, that stupid million dollar homepage! Why didn't I think of it! lol... I always seem to think that you can't sit around and try to come up with million dollar ideas. You need to go screw around with stuff and then ideas will just hit you! Go play sports, read books, do stuff, but always keep your mind open and ready to put things together to create that million dollar idea.
Canadian Entrepreneurs - Hi Evan, I think you should profile Anita from the Body Shop. Is she Canadian? It would be nice to get a Canadian perspective for all of us who are starting businesses in Canada. Do you find th stories of the entrepreneurs vary depending on country? Thanks for all these great stories - it helps inspire us! Jessica


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