Chart of the Day: Oil Prices

From Stephen Gordon comes this chart:

Gordon notes that the Canadian dollar/yen exchange rate today is pretty much the same as it was back on September 4, which means that the price of oil has risen about the same amount in both currencies - which is a bit weird, given that Canada is a big oil exporter and Japan is a big oil importer. One would expect in an environment of rapidly-rising oil prices that the oil exporter's currency would outperform, as in fact it did until the beginning of this month or so.

This chart is also useful for anybody who keeps on insisting that it matters what currency oil prices are denominated. Clearly, oil has been rising significantly over the past few months in any currency you care to look at. And the spike in oil prices over the past couple of weeks is even more pronounced in (strong) Canadian dollars than it is in (weak) U.S. dollars.

Comments

[jrham]

Add gold and see how it tracks.

mahrj