Many of you are in fact on the same level as a Loonie.  Ok, maybe not you, but the money in your wallet is.  So, what is a Loonie?

A Loonie is the Canadian Dollar and it has always (or almost always anyway) been worth less than the US Dollar.  So, it reached the same value as the US Dollar which means our neighbors to the north are really happy.  So happy, in fact, that the Canadian Finance Minister held a press conference Thursday discussing the looming parity.

So why should you care?  Simply put, and as the Canadian Finance Minister stated, there is growing concerns over the US economic weakness. 

So how bad is it?  If we do a comparison with the Euro, going back to when the dollar traded for 88 cents against the euro until today, Americans have lost nearly 60% of their purchasing power in Europe.  Compared to gold, that number is even higher.

And what about housing?  It is not keeping up either, just like at the gas station.  Now, foreigners can come in and "buy the US" at bargain basement prices.

Ok, on to what will happen this week.  There is a host of economic data coming out this week that will help shine a light on how our economy is doing, probably the most important of which is the Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) due out Friday.  This is the Fed's favorite measure of inflation.

It is important to note that the PCE data will be pre-Fed rate cut data, but it will be a valuable "starting point" to gauge how Americans spending habits changed after the cut. 

Mortgage Rates are still trying to figure out which direction to go at the moment as Mortgage Backed Securities (the driver of rates) keep see-sawing back and forth along their 200-day Moving Average.  Once a "break-away" occurs, we can tell where rates will be heading with some certainty.