UPDATE: Canadian Dollar = American Dollar

[Fred Derf Veteran]

I hope Canadians start noticing this price difference bull****, it's completely insane... I understand there can be taxes and tarriffs... but come on

I don't think it has much to do with taxes and tariffs, I think it has everything to do with corporate profit taking in Canada. Items like books still have drastically different prices in Canada and there really is no need for it.

C$ is over par right this second. First time since 1976.

[Deactivated Account]

The Canadian Doller is now worth more then the US

From XE.com

Live rates at 2007.09.20 18:50:37 UTC

1.00 CAD = 1.00024 USD

Canada Dollars United States Dollars

1 CAD = 1.00024 USD 1 USD = 0.999761 CAD

Live rates at 2007.09.20 18:51:37 UTC

1.00 USD = 0.999712 CAD

United States Dollars Canada Dollars

1 USD = 0.999712 CAD 1 CAD = 1.00029 USD

[Allan]

Canada has beaten back! I remember 6 yrs ago when it was at at 54 and 50 cents per US dollar ... now, we've surged over the dollar mark ...

[TruckWEB]

Live rates at 2007.09.20 20:11:37 UTC

Canada Dollars

1 CAD = 0.998650 USD

United States Dollars

1 USD = 1.00135 CAD

It's official... But the $US climbed a little bit... !

[zivan56]

Time to go to the US and buy a couple of iPhones to resell :D

[4CxbqFxVnstmA Veteran]

The pound has been worth more than US$2 for a while now.

Congrats to Canada, but I think a lot of this is the generally flaccid American dollar rather than a properly solid Canadian dollar or pound or euro...............

[Lighthalzen]

I am a student from Hong Kong (Canadian citizen), and this is not good.

I am on the same boat, it's ridiculous!

[Fred Derf Veteran]

Congrats to Canada, but I think a lot of this is the generally flaccid American dollar rather than a properly solid Canadian dollar or pound or euro...............

Yes, this really should be pointed out. It isn't that Canadian productivity is doing ridiculously well but rather it has more to do with debt and inflation concerns with the United States of America. Certain commodities like oil are also pushing up the Canadian dollar.

Since our high dollar is not being propelled by productivity, non-commodity businesses (particularly in Ontario and Quebec) may be at a competitive disadvantage right now. Given enough time, another Quebec separation referendum will send our dollar plummeting again and Ontario firms may get an unnatural advantage.

[TruckWEB]

Given enough time, another Quebec separation referendum will send our dollar plummeting again

Oh God, I hope not... Darn, how many time must we say NO? Seems like they don't understand... It's like, "okay, lets wait another 10-20 years and ask the same darn question again" ....

[rajputwarrior]

WOOT!

thats for taking our softwood!

yup, my dad lost his job because of that BS

[Fred Derf Veteran]

Oh God, I hope not... Darn, how many time must we say NO? Seems like they don't understand... It's like, "okay, lets wait another 10-20 years and ask the same darn question again" ....

In 2027 they'll be doing the "Best 7 out of 13" referendum (after six straight losses).

[Bubbabyte]

Yup. While it's good for us Canadian's, if you were to try and go anywhere in the American side either they won't take our money or they are still giving 30% exchange (I know it's not right but there are many places that don't pay attention ... your best bet is to just take out a lot of USD lol).

agreed. I see your in ontario as well, i'm near niagara falls, i'm about 20 minutes from buffalo border and each side of niagara falls rips each other off.. if you go to the US with CAD cash or try to get money out there, you are charged a high exchange.. and same for when US citizens visit niagara falls.. the whole tourist area has signs laid out saying we give (so and so) for exchange.. usually like 20%.. it's brutal.

As much as this is a happy day for canadians, myself included, it still sucks because goods are still more expensive in canada than in the US.. i just thank god i live near a border...lol

[clamjuice]

Yea i was real happy to hear this news on my TV as i woke up. Sadly its going to take nearly half a year for any prices to be adjusted here in Canada, and by that time it may have gone back down. My advice is buy stuff online from an American site. OR go to your home bank exchange there and head over the border! I'm not going to exchange all my money for American just yet as i have a feeling it will go up some more, but in a couple months i might trade it in and trade back when it drops hehehe.

[Fred Derf Veteran]

[Threads Merged]

[+Mirumir Subscriber¹]

Yea i was real happy to hear this news on my TV as i woke up. Sadly its going to take nearly half a year for any prices to be adjusted here in Canada, and by that time it may have gone back down. My advice is buy stuff online from an American site. OR go to your home bank exchange there and head over the border! I'm not going to exchange all my money for American just yet as i have a feeling it will go up some more, but in a couple months i might trade it in and trade back when it drops hehehe.

Sorry to disappoint, but the Canadian Dollar has been climbing steadily for the last 4-5 years gaining 60% in value against the greenback, yet the prices for the most of consumers' goods have remained unchanged. Take a look at prices for cars for example. We, in Canada, pay at least $5,000 dollars more for exactly the same car and the difference only goes up for higher priced vehicles reaching huge gaps (MB S550 goes for $80,000 in the U.S. and for $120,000 in Canada). That's why I'm purchasing my next car in the U.S.

Buying stuff online from American e-tailers is good advice; I tend to do that a lot.

[micro]

This is not good news for americans, the us dollar is being sacrificed by the Federal Reserve in a last ditch effort to save the mortgage bankers. The sub prime mortgage bankers have been in lots of trouble.

However, This has been done many times, and was done after 9/11. The USD will increase in value shortly.

[+Mirumir Subscriber¹]

I wonder if the US will ever consolidate like the Euro did. Would make things much easier for everyone over here in NA.

Consolidate? Do you mean like Mexico and Canada joining the U.S.? I sure hope that doesn't happen.

1 Euro = 1,4017 U.S. dollars

this morning it was even worse! 1.4 imagine that (never been that low since 1970). The dollar is going down fast.

Sorry, but Euro (th currency) didn't exist in 1970. It was established in 1992 and went in circulation in 2002.

Edited September 21, 2007 by Zhivago

[david.]

Canada has beaten back! I remember 6 yrs ago when it was at at 54 and 50 cents per US dollar ... now, we've surged over the dollar mark ...

it never went down below 62 cents

[Dwight Schrute]

may i say F YEAHHH im goin to the states tomarrow for cloths n stuff :p

[*RedBull*]

Canada will see less purchases from the US due to the value change. Prices on Canadian products sold in the US will go up and cause Americans to buy less of it. It's just the way things work. I rarely buy Canadian products when in the states, so I would likely not buy under those circumstances. Money is what it is about.

[XerXis]

Consolidate? Do you mean like Mexico and Canada joining the U.S.? I sure hope that doesn't happen.

Sorry, but Euro (th currency) didn't exist in 1970. It was established in 1992 and went in circulation in 2002.

First of all, i know that, i live in europe. Second, that doesn't change anything about my statement of the dollar being at it lowest value since 1970.

[include]

The Canadian dollar has been on a tear. In the past six months, the currency has made new 30 year highs after appreciating over 12 percent against the US dollar, putting parity within reach. At the beginning of the year, an exchange rate of 1.0 for USD/CAD seemed like a far fetched target, but now it has become a realistic and very probable one. Even though sentiment has become very one-sided and technicals indicate that the currency pair is extremely oversold, there is no major support until parity. With the risk of a global slowdown, record high oil prices and a resilient economy is behind the strength of the Loonie.

The Impact of a US Slowdown

The latest move in the Canadian dollar has befuddled many investors because the Canadian economy has traditionally been very sensitive to US economic growth. It is estimated that Canada exports 80 percent of their goods to the US, which makes it logical to assume that a slowdown in US demand would translate into a slowdown in Canadian exports. However over the past few years, Canada has become less reliant on US demand as the country’s vast oil resources begin to attract the attention of resource hungry countries like China.

Since Canada discovered a new source of oil after the reclassification of their Alberta oil sands to the economically recoverable category, their geopolitically turmoil free status has made them a very attractive provider of oil. Also, over the next 3 years, China’s oil import needs are expected to double and match that of the US by 2030. With little oil resources of their own, China has become a major buyer of oil on the global markets. This has helped the Canadian economy become more immune to the economic stability which may be part of the reason why Canadian data has been consistently surprising to the upside while US economic data has seen nothing but back to back disappointments. In the month of August, when the subprime crisis began to unfold, IVEY PMI actually jumped from 54.6 to 58.5, indicating increased manufacturing activity. During the same month the US lost 4k jobs while Canada added 23.3k. Manufacturing shipments continue to remain strong while net foreign purchases of Canadian securities increased for the first time in 3 months. This will keep the Bank of Canada on hold for the remainder of the year, which comes in stark contrast to the US Federal Reserve who is expected to lower interest rates by as much as 75bp this year.

Canada Benefits from Prospect of $100 Oil

Trading USD/CAD these days has become synonymous with trading oil. The fate of oil and USD/CAD are intermingled because the Canada is the world’s second largest holder of oil reserves and the US’ most significant oil supplier. Unbeknownst to many, the size of their oil reserves is second only to Saudi Arabia. The geographical proximity between the US and Canada as well as the growing political uncertainty in the Middle East, Africa and South America makes Canada the preferred importer of oil to the US. Canada also remains one of the few places where multinational firms can access strategically important oil reserves. As indicated by the chart below, this correlation has lasted for years.

Therefore the speculation that USD/CAD will fall to parity is implicitly the same as expecting oil prices to rise to $100 a barrel. With crude climbing back above $80 a barrel to hit an intraday high of $80.70 today, that is not inconceivable notion. Despite the problems in the US economy, fears of hurricanes, attacks on Mexican oil facilities, a lower than expected production increase by OPEC and the continual rise in global demand is driving oil prices to new highs. Many economists expect oil prices to reach as high as $100 a barrel by the end of next year as China and India become more modernized, leading to an increase demand for energy resources.

Technically, with USD/CAD making lower lows and lower highs, there is no reason to believe that this downtrend will end until we get a break and close back above 1.04.

Source

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said a weak U.S. dollar was the "real story" behind the loonie briefly reaching parity with U.S. currency for the first time in 31 years.

"The real story here is the rather dramatic decline in the U.S. currency in recent days and as a result the Canadian dollar is up significantly," Flaherty told reporters. He said he'd just had a conversation with Bank of Canada Governor David Dodge, to discuss the implications of a Canadian dollar even in value to a U.S. dollar.

At 10:58 a.m. EDT, the loonie rose as high as 1.0008 US before closing at the end of the trading day at 99.87 cents US -- up 1.37 cents US from Wednesday.

Flaherty told reporters that the strength of the dollar brings both pros and cons for the economy.

"It helps Canadian manufacturers acquire new technology, but then it also puts some pressure on manufacturers, particularly the suddenness of the depreciation of the US dollar," he said. "We've seen some reduction in demand with respect to U.S. housing, with respect to automobiles."

The weak U.S. economy, caused specifically by the housing market, has been hurting the Canadian forestry industry, he said.

"What I can do in Canada is help to increase productivity through tax policy,'' he said. "The key to manufacturing success in Canada is high productivity, improved productivity, and that will tell the tale over time."

Winners on the dollar's rise:

* Canadians planning trips to the U.S.

* Importers

* Currency speculators

* Companies who have much of their debt in U.S. dollars

* Cross-border and online shoppers

Losers on the dollar's rise:

* Canada's manufacturing sector

* Auto parts makers

* Lumber and paper companies

* Exporters of farm products such as wheat, corn and other foodstuffs

Analysts take on pros and cons

The recent strength of the Canadian dollar was supported by lofty commodity prices, a strong domestic economy and concerns about a U.S. economic slowdown.

BNN's Michael Hainsworth says the need for Canadian oil, natural gas and other natural resources in markets such as China's has pushed the value of the Canadian dollar up.

"In the last five years, China's growth rate has been so phenomenal and their demand for everything we provide them has been so strong, that's been an underpinning for the prices that everybody else has had to pay for our products."

He said analysts expect the Canadian dollar will hover around parity for the foreseeable future.

"They are suggesting to me by the time we pop the champagne corks for 2008, we will continue to be at parity."

One benefit of a loonie equal to the U.S. greenback is a boost in national pride, one analyst said Thursday.

"Maybe more than anything, it means a great lift in the confidence of Canadians have in themselves and certainly in their country," ScotiaMcLeod's Fred Ketchen told CTV News.

Analysts say what helped pushed the Canadian dollar over the top was some new trade data from Statistics Canada, which reported the economy was surprisingly strong in July.

The chief economist at the TD Bank Financial Group says there are clear winners and losers from an economic perspective. But on balance, the impact is negative for the Canadian economy, said Craig Alexander.

Alexander says the strong loonie also makes life difficult for the tourism and hospitality sectors. On the other hand, it's a positive for importers, wholesalers and consumers.

The Canadian dollar was last at the US$1 mark on November 25, 1976, when Pierre Trudeau was prime minister and Rene Levesque had just become Quebec's premier.

The Canadian dollar's all-time high against the U.S. dollar occurred in 1957. That's when it closed at $1.06 U.S. It reached a low of 62 cents US in 2002.

Weak U.S. greenback

The American dollar's weakness was evident across most currencies Thursday as it slumped versus the euro, the British pound, the yen and Swiss franc.

And Alexander warns it's important to keep in mind that the exchange rate we watch so closely is the value of the Canadian dollar compared to the U.S. currency.

"In recent years what we've been getting is a rise in the loonie on a strong economy, and commodity prices -- which are domestic fundamentals," he told Newsnet. "But it's also a reflection of weakness in the U.S. dollar, which has been falling against most major currencies.

"And although the Canadian dollar has outperformed the euro and many other currencies in the last year, the reality is most currencies have been going up against the U.S. dollar."

Bush: Fundamentals are 'strong'

While the U.S. greenback continues to tank against the Canadian dollar and the euro, questions are being asked about the health of the American economy.

U.S. President George Bush pushed aside those concerns on Thursday, telling a news conference the U.S. economy is healthy, despite this rough patch.

"I say that the fundamentals of our nation's economy are strong. Inflation's down, job markets are steady and strong. The national unemployment rate is 4.6 per cent. Corporate profits appear to be strong, exports are up."

He added, however, there is no question that these are "unsettling times" for the housing market.

Commenting on the mortgage crisis in the U.S., Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke said it has created "significant market stress." He offered assurances that regulators would take steps to curb any related fallout.

"Global financial losses have far exceeded even the most pessimistic estimates of the credit losses on these loans," he said in remarks prepared for presentation to the House of Representatives' financial services committee.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson signalled that the administration would consider allowing big mortgage companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to temporarily buy, bundle and sell as securities any loans exceeding US$417,000.

The idea is portrayed as a way to inject liquidity into the stretched mortgage market

SOURCE 2

The value of my USD investements went down by about 12% in terms of USD in just a month....

Thank you very much Bush admin.

Edited September 21, 2007 by include

[include]

Good news for canadians. Sadly (for us, not for the europeans) the euro and the pound are kicking ass.

I had my entire investement in US goddamn ****ing dollars.

I'm not too worried though. Eventually it will go up again; the Canadian market is only doing well right now because of Alberta.

[Dick Montage]

Yup, US$ is worth jack these days. Its a joke but also a major worry to those in finance. Worst part is - there seems to be absolutely zero talk of a legitimate recovery plan.

[aubaine]

Yup, US$ is worth jack these days. Its a joke but also a major worry to those in finance. Worst part is - there seems to be absolutely zero talk of a legitimate recovery plan.

Yeah, I work in study abroad, and my students going to England ($2 = 1GBP) are really hurting. The US currency seems to be plummeting, and I haven't seen a single news story about it. They just talk about the housing market...