Foreign Currency Exchange

Early last week the Canadian Dollar continued its strength over the Pound reaching a 15 year high as the Global markets waited to hear the results of the US Bailout plan. However, towards the end of the week the Pound gained ground as commodity prices fell and investors chose to move their investments out of commodities.
Even with the $700 billion bail out by the US government the general view is that globally, things will continue to worsen for some time and therefore demand for commodities has started to fall. Added to that fact, America remains Canada’s largest trading partner and as the US Dollar becomes more expensive Canada’s import/export industries bear the brunt of the market movement.

Commodity prices will continue to play a large part in the Canadian Dollars’ fortunes looking into the near and longer term. However, as always there are two currencies involved in any cross and Sterling’s buying power is still widely seen as being the weakest in the G7 and the outlook for the UK remains poor.