Commentary on the economy, the markets, and business

Why I love currency markets, the loonie edition

From Bloomberg:

The Canadian dollar fell for a fourth day as investors sold commodity-linked currencies on speculation U.S. subprime mortgage losses will slow the world's largest economy.

The Canadian currency was the second-worst performer among the 16 most actively traded currencies, trailing only Japan's yen, while falling 0.3 percent to 93.70 U.S. cents. One U.S. dollar buys C$1.0662. ...

Commodities account for about half of Canada's exports. Canada ships more than 80 percent of its exports to the U.S., including steel and lumber.

Canada's dollar also came under pressure after a German bank's losses from subprime mortgages renewed concern that rising defaults will reduce lending and curb corporate takeovers. Canada's dollar has benefited from foreign takeovers of Canadian commodity assets.

Okay, so let's get this straight: The Canadian dollar fell against the U.S. dollar because of concerns about weakness in the U.S. economy. And maybe also because a German bank got into trouble buying U.S. mortgages? That doesn't really seem fair, does it? I guess you could make the argument that, as a commodity-driven economy, Canada is subject to greater cyclical swings than the U.S.--if the U.S. catches cold, Canada catches pneumonia. But isn't it also possible that the currency traders that Bloomberg talks to are just making things up to explain something for which there is no real explanation?

  • Print
  • Comment
Comments (1)
Post a Comment »
  • 1

    On liquid markets, like interest rates or Forex, Bloomberg (or Reuters) only gets to speak to trainees or managers at the larger trading firms. On a trading floor, knowledgeable people - ie, market-makers - are usually too busy to talk to the press and in any case would keep mum on anything really important, as they certainly do NOT want to leak anything about their oversize books to competitors.

    This, over time, has created a form of vicious circle, with press agencies in turn only fielding trainees. The end result is that market commentaries over the wires are basically EXPLETIVE DELETED, and are systematically ignored by market professionals.

    It is a clear case of people that cannot understand asking people that cannot know and then writing up about it.

Add Your Comment:

You must be logged in to post a comment.
The Curious Capitalist Daily E-mail

Get e-mail updates from TIME's The Curious Capitalist in your inbox and never miss a day.

Quotes of the Day »

Get & Share
LORI HAAS, whose daughter was wounded in the 2007 Virginia Tech shootings, on a new report finding that officials warned their families more than an hour and a half before the rest of the campus and released locked-down students who were later killed