I do take it as a near personal slight when the Canadian dollar drops in value against its US counterpart. There are those who say the situation helps to boost exports. In my mind having to resort to a continual fire sale cannot be good for a country. I guess a main problem with the world financial markets are their sheer size and scope. Yes, Canadian fundamentals have, up to now, been in much better shape than most of the G7. We are still perceived to be a commodity-currency though. When it comes to exchange rates that hurts.
As most world prices are still set against the greenback, the fall in the Canadian value from last summer's 1.10 to the current .77 is a substantial drop. Now when I run out to do world shopping I feel much poorer. If the US economy is in such dire straights then why does its greenback end up being able to attract the flight of risk funds. If I'd been smarter I would have hedged a quarter of my savings into US currency eight months ago. If only ...
Oh, you needn't explain to me the actual processes and reasons for these changes. I will let you speak to my HSBC adviser whom I ignored. She was suggesting I aggressively stash my cash in a money market that's now off by more than fifty percent.