Monthly Archives: March 2008
The forex market is dumber than a sack of hammers
Or maybe it’s just the people who comment on its gyrations. A Reuters piece from today is a case in point: Loonie slips on US economic outlook: The Canadian dollar slid lower against the U.S. dollar as investors were loath to bet on the currency, given Canada’s heavy dependency on the waning U.S. economy… Huh? […]
Oil prices in currencies other than the USD revisited
Time up update my irregular series of graphs of oil price movements in currencies other than the USD: The story of the first couple of months is pretty straightforward: oil prices fell in January and came back up in February, and there wasn’t much in the way of significant exchange rate movements. By the end […]
Mark Carney announces his presence with authority
The Bank of Canada lowered its overnight rate target by 1/2 of a percentage point to 3 1/2 per cent: [T]here are clear signs that the U.S. economy is likely to experience a deeper and more prolonged slowdown than had been projected in January. This stems from further weakening in the residential housing market, which […]
The 2007Q4 GDP release: A cold December
This was a nasty surprise: Economic growth slowed considerably in the fourth quarter as real gross domestic product (GDP) grew 0.2%, down from 0.7% in the third quarter. Economic output contracted 0.7% in December. The driving factor here is the fall in exports: Exports recorded a significant 2.2% decline in the fourth quarter, in the […]
A current account imbalance finally unwinds
I’ve been unavoidably delayed in responding to a wave of recent events, so it’s catch-up time. The 2007Q4 current account went negative for the first time this century. Although imports and investment income payments held steady, the CAD appreciation led to declines in both the value of exports and in the value of investment income […]
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
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