December job creation in the United States came in well below expectations prompting many to start second guessing the Federal Reserve’s decision in December to start tapering. There is speculation that the Fed could halt their tapering, or even consider a return to stimulative measures which has caused gold to rally and the US dollar to take a hit against most of the major currencies. The exception to that is, of course, the Canadian dollar, which is being sent even further down after a terrible jobs report. Canada lost 45,900 jobs in December, which is almost equivalent to the United States losing half a million jobs in a month. This is a horrible number, and the outlook for the Canadian dollar is looking dimmer by the minute.
The US stock market has had a lackluster start to 2014 but
surprisingly enough the Canadian stock market has been an out-performer and is
up almost 1% to start the year with resource stocks starting to show signs of
life.
