January has generally been proceeding to plan (i.e. nothing really exciting going on in my neck of the financial woods!). But the real surprise to me to date is the following chart:
The strength of the Canadian currency has been quite impressive in light of what is going on (coupled with a general lack of rise in the fossil fuel commodity market rate). I am generally agnostic about the strength of the Canadian currency (i.e. I rarely have strong feelings about its primary direction), but lately I have been getting pessimistic about it strictly due to various macroeconomic factors (including the fiscal situation, Canadian/US monetary policy, geopolitical, commodity situation, etc.).
Macroeconomics for me is a complete crapshoot so I don’t place too much of a stake on my own predictions in terms of currency. I generally keep a balance between 30-70% USD exposure (the exact amount depends on appreciation/depreciation of CAD/USD components in the portfolio as well).