We're beginning to see people move out of Singer. Some of the people are starting to get placed in longer-term housing in the community, which is really our focus now.
Since Friday, we've seen the Canadian dollar do very well against the crosses, particularly against the euro and the sterling. That seems to be driving most of the Canadian dollar gains right now.
I think in terms of tone it was a little more dovish than what the market was expecting.
I think in general what we have seen is a little bit of profit-taking,
I think it's more of a short-term thing. I don't think it is something that really indicates that the dollar has reached a peak and it's about to depreciate significantly.
It introduces a little more uncertainty into the marketplace in the sense that most people were expecting some sort of action by the end of December at the latest.
I think we've seen a little bit of a Canadian dollar rally on some of the crosses, so that's been a benefit, and there's been some corporate interest to sell the U.S. dollar (versus Canada) in a fairly thin market.
I think there's a little bit of concern that we might see oil prices back up above $70 and as a result of that, I think there is a little bit of a positive spin for the Canadian dollar.
I think the question on most people's minds is what are they going to do to be able to maintain the surplus and not overspend so that we move back into a deficit situation.
Just given the fact the market wasn't able to push the Canadian dollar above that 12-year high that was set last November, I think that caused a few people to look at taking some profits on some of their long Canadian dollar positions.
Last week we saw oil give back a sizable amount of recent gains and I just think that given the fact that we have seen some weakness in oil prices as a result of that, that's weighed on the Canadian dollar as well,
Over the last couple of days we've tried to break past C$1.1650 (85.83 U.S. cents) and we really haven't been able to do it, and I think what we're starting to see now is some profit-taking, not only on dollar/Canada positions, but on cross positions.
That allowed the Canadian dollar to basically move back toward the 14-year high that we saw in early March.
It doesn't get any easier. I wish this thing would have a little bit of a corrective bounce, and I could relax a little bit, but it's not happening here.
I think the tax cuts were too big, and I am worried about the deficit. You have to pay it back at some point.
We catch a lot of flak, ... They give us a lot of ribbing over that. I just say, 'I'm just the low man on the totem pole.' I don't feel responsible. I don't know if we would have stayed if we would have avoided that or not.
We have not seen much reaction but given the elevated level of unit labor costs as well as the lower-than-expected print of initial claims data, that would be viewed as dollar supportive and may see the dollar rally over the short term.
The days of the rock star board member are over. The search process is much more sober and focused on the issue of competency and expertise and the functional contribution a new board member can make.
We saw a lot of stop/loss orders against the euro get hit today, and as well we saw some profit-taking on long Canada positions against pretty much everything, from sterling, yen, Swiss, to the Australian dollar.
Up until now, many of these folks, these past couple weeks, have had no choices. What we want to do is return that sense of control over their lives back to them. Many of them have expressed that they don't know what they want to do.
We saw not much of a reaction to the Canadian data, but a little bit of a pop after the U.S. data came out, but on balance we haven't really moved.
We think our spring league is the best in the state. Our softball youth just keep getting better and better and better. The athletic growth of these players has been phenomenal and we feel we have been a part of that.
At this point, I think most people are just delving back to his time as the provincial finance minister, and focusing on the tax-cut angle, which I think in the long run would be perceived in a fairly positive fashion.
The rise of the Canadian dollar is partly driven by the short-term selling pressure of the U.S. dollar after the tape came out.
It weakened off initially when the data came out, and then we've seen the market come back a little bit.
Prices will have to close below this level in order to produce new additional downside price momentum.
As far as the recreation department, he's been suspended for a year. It's in our recreation department rules that (there's) no physical contact on umpires or even verbal.
They're kind of saying that it's going to be OK, but that remains to be seen,
There's been a little bit of corporate and cross interest to buy the Canadian dollar, which appears to have had a little bit of an impact, and I think the market was focusing on support that was very close to 1.17 (85.47 U.S. cents).
The bigger issue is not what will happen today, as everyone expects a quarter-point rate hike, but more important will be the accompanying statement to see what a post-Greenspan Fed will look like. It's fairly quiet right now.
It's been extremely volatile in this pair, especially with the upcoming elections in Canada.
It seemed to be a little bit more of profit-taking and short-covering ahead of tomorrow's interest rate announcement than anything else.
It was a cold winter night, as I remember it. We were playing a Cary Grant movie or something like that and he suddenly appeared and held the door open for seniors.
On balance, they were hawkish comments that basically indicate that there's more rate hikes to come, ... We saw the market basically turn into net buyers after that.
That seemed to change the texture of the market, given that the accompanying statement from the bank was a little bit more on the hawkish side of expectations.
Existing home sales were stronger than expected and that is providing an offset.
The interest rate side is probably giving the Canadian dollar some support against other currencies.
The Canadian dollar is grinding lower, playing catch-up with the price correction that we saw in oil last week.
In terms of correlations, natural gas has tended to have the highest correlation with the Canadian dollar over the last year or so.
Chicago PMI came out stronger than expected and we also saw the prices paid index rise,
And as result of that, we're seeing more people exit long U.S. dollar positions that had been built up during 2005.
The market looks at it as what's good for the U.S. is good for Canada because of the close trading relationship.
