CANADIAN MARKET FADING SLIGHTLY

KL Nichols

The Canadian Dollar, called the Looney, because of the bird pictured on it is a Loon. It might as well stand for the eratic uncertainty that the Canadian Dollar is facing.

While Canadians celebrated last year as the country's dollar reached parity with its U.S. counterpart for the first time since 1976, traders now predict the currency will fall as much as 17 percent through 2009. Riding the express train that is the American economy, energy prices and certain commodities have boomed.

In May Canada's economy shrank 0.1 percent, as the extraction of natural gas slowed and car production dropped, Statistics Canada said last week in Ottawa. Economists predicted a 0.2 percent expansion.

If you have been watching closely, you have probably tracked this drop yourself, there being no labor savings for American Manufacturers in Canada since the parity, and the rising price of gas, mfgrs. are closing factories in Canada and looking for a cheaper market. The next factories opened will probably be in Mexico whose labor is still cheap and the pollution regs. are pretty lax.

Why am I writing about this, because the Canadian market was just developing and with the parety between the Looney and the Buck, the Canadian market was just starting to replace some of the drop the collector car market was experiencing her in the US.

The collector vehicle market is still going fairly good for foreign buyers, but so goes America, so goes the foreign economy, so if you get a buyer interested in your classic from over seas, don't bargain to hard.

Copyright K & L Enterprises