Bank of Canada’s Base Case Straps Its Dollar Around Parity With U.S.

Currency traders appeared very disappointed that the Bank of Canada left interest rates unchanged on Tuesday. The Canadian dollar (“loonie”) immediately bounced sharply from near three-year highs against the U.S. dollar, and the USD/CAD eventually popped over parity (1.0) for the first time in two weeks on Thursday. The accompanying statement suggested that the Bank … Read more

Mark Carney Speaks Plainly About the Role of Canada’s Central Bank

Mark Carney, the governor of Canada’s central bank (Bank of Canada), must be one of the most relaxed central bankers in the Western world. In an interview posted on Paul Kedrosky’s website (minutes 9 to 35), Carney admits that his job is easy compared to the task still facing many of his contemporaries. For example, … Read more

Dollar Clings to (Life)Support, Pound Maintains Upward Trend

Ahead of last week’s big events, I suggested that the market was setting up for a surprise reaction. So far, the biggest surprise has been the timing of the market’s big rally reaction after the election and the Federal Reserve’s announcement of quantitative easing and before the unemployment report. But that is not the surprise … Read more

Bank of Canada Confirms Carney’s Caution

On Tuesday morning the Bank of Canada decided to leave its overnight interest rate unchanged at 1.0% and confirmed the caution expressed by Governor Mark Carney on CNBC almost a month ago. The concluding paragraph in the statement on monetary policy summarizes the Bank’s concern about current economic conditions: “At this time of transition in … Read more

The Canadian Dollar Resists the U.S. Dollar’s Advance

As the U.S. dollar index has steadily advanced this month, the relative strength of the Canadian dollar has perplexed me. The Canadian dollar has long seemed overplayed to me as a commodity-positive play given the country’s heavy dependence on the health of the U.S. economy – which I continue to assume will perform weakly in … Read more