US Economic Policy and Exchange rate with Cdn$

[can'twaitforabigrun]

Decided to start a new thread for discussing any opinions on monetary policy and how it may affect the strength of the American dollar, and in turn the exchange rate with the Canadian dollar and the price for bulk syrup.

It is my opinion that the US dollar is relatively strong compared to last few years. This may be due to the economy starting to pick up, particularly manufacturing. Looking globally, Asian growth seems to be slowing and the outlook in Europe appears flat. Importantly, up here in Canada our dollar has weakened considerably as the price of oil plummeted. It would seem that we almost have a petrodollar here. For US syrup packers this is good news, since it is now cheaper to buy Federation syrup. For American producers selling bulk syrup this means they may receive reduced prices for their syrup. From the American producer's viewpoint I would hope that oil prices move up to help lift the Cdn $, and that Quebec has a down year for production (under 100 million pounds) after two consecutive record breaking seasons.

Lastly, a shout out to everyone involved in marketing American syrup. It seems that after the 10-15% increase in trees tapped per year for the last few years, there is still very little unsold syrup. It's always good for everyone when the overall market for syrup increases.

[PATheron]

Cantwait- Seems to me like the energy thing is a huge deal. You guys are producing lots of oil because of the new technology. The US is producing tons of oil and nat gas. Maybe things are just going to stay this way for a while because of all the energy that is being produced everywhere. Ive heard that OPEC is dumping tons of oil on the market just to try to slow down production in the US where it is more expensive to get energy. If that's the case guess have to just wait and see how everything pans out. One thing good is way may have real cheap gas prices for a while. Theron

[can'twaitforabigrun]

From the looks of your signature it looks like you use oil to fire your rig. For those like you who use oil it seems that a possible lower price for heating oil, coincides with reduced bulk prices. Costs and prices often have a way of leveling each other out.

[PATheron]

I was kind of thinking that too. This morning I saw the gas price in town and thought that its going to be real nice to have less fuel oil bill. That is my biggest bill with the syrup. Theron