Canadians, are we headed for 'at par' exchange rates?
 

Economists at CIBC were predicting 1.13 going into the new year, with that pretty much being the bottom.

They're now shooting even lower, predicting 1.10 by the end of the first quarter of the new year:

http://research.cibcwm.com/economic_...d/dec09_05.pdf

How low will it go.......

I did a big buy at CIBC's online trader a few weeks ago and got near 1.18, hoping that would get me through this slump - https://www.fxdealing.cibc.com/index.jsp

Reality is, I'll have to buy some Canadian dollars at these brutal rates to get through the next couple of quarters.

Do any of you Canadian webmasters out there have any strategies to counter this?

Thanks in advance.

Keep as much of it as you can in USD and wait for it to go back up? Might be a long wait though.

it wont be going back up anytime soon...maybe if they get a democrat in office and four years of hard work by them..then you will see an increase

the spending habits of republicans just dont measure up to the usa's economy

no strategies here, I just hope it improves soon, my pay decreases each pay period! :Oh crap

Yes, that's pretty much been the idea all along.

However, the long term outlooks just keep getting more and more bleak. Earlier this year the predictions were for a 1.25ish rate by mid 2006. This has dropped nearly 10% over the last 6 months.

One has to wonder where the bottom is, but there is little doubt these type of rates are here to stay for the forseeable future.

all I can say is :waaaaahh :waaaaahh :waaaaahh :waaaaahh :waaaaahh :waaaaahh

In 2 or 3 years, it will be at part... getting there slowly.

When I was a kid, we used to get $US 1.10 for $CAN 1.00 ....

They need to get BUSH outta there!

the Peso here is mexico is now trading at 10.25, and will be moving back up my june of 2006. If you have a few hundred G's laying around. you can make a ton.

isn't it a topsy turvy fucking world when conservatives spend to much and liberals are the fiscally conservative ones?

Yeah the forecasts are for a par dollar in the next year and a bit. Maybe you can invest in the yen or euro? sigh.

I wish I had some more CDN cash as I'll have to take one hell of a hit to pay taxes in the new year.
WG

I can loan you some at a decent rate.

:winkwink:

Its great for visiting the US.

Says it all... :Oh crap

When the slide started to happen I began looking at revenue streams from within Canada than of course pay in Canadian dollars.

I do have a small Production Company here that brings in a bit of Canadian dollars, but not near enough to sustain day to day living. Diversifying into more ventures that bring in Canadian revenue streams are of course an obvious choice.

One theory I have had involves pulling money out of RRSP's to purchase my first home(ok, this won't apply to everyone).

As may or may not know, you can pull 20k out of rrsp's to buy your first home. You have 15 years to pay this back. My logic is that although 20k of rrsp's will cost me 18k or so USD, I have 15 years to wait for a better rate to pay this back.

For example, say in 2008 the rate gets back to 25% - it will only take 16k usd to pay back the rrsp at this point.

This of course is not going to help everyone, and at best could only save you a couple thousand dollars. Every little bit helps though.

Anyone else with ideas like this?

Not quite the same thing, but I've also been looking at ways to SAVE in my local currency. A discount is like tax free income!

http://www.fyibox.com/for-your-infor...-free-interest

Here's the important bit

"To conclude, let's go back to our savings account and look at it another way: to earn the equivalent of $700 in tax-paid interest, you would need need to increase the amount sitting in your savings account for the year to just over $18,850. You can save the same $700 by keeping only $10,000 in your home loan account for the year."

I feel your pain man...It just keeps on dropping :(

Cool, interesting read, thanks.

yeah it's fucking ugly.

I remember running orders at 1.55

:(