Canada slowly marches back to a recovered loonie
Still don’t have plans for the reading week? Well look no further, a solution is here. The popular South Carolina town of Myrtle Beach knows that the falling loonie means Canadians won’t be coming to the U.S., and the city wants to change that. To entice Canadians to the area, the town’s hotels, attractions, and restaurants are offering deep discounts to Canadians until April 30, 2016, so long as customers carry a valid Canadian I.D. The discounts are meant to cover the difference of the dollar conversion from Canadian to U.S. currency. Myrtle Beach Area CVB marketing director Susan Phillips said the hope is that the promotions will overcome “any financial hurdles caused by the exchange rate.”
“This special Canadian discount is just one more reason to visit in the lovely late winter and early spring seasons, which have typically mild weather, even more affordable accommodations, and more elbow room at area attractions,” said Phillips, in a Sept. 30, 2015 news release.
Additionally, the savings are meant to attract visitors to the annual Can-Am Days Festival, where Myrtle Beach spends a week “rolling out the red carpet to our neighbors from the north” with activities and events. This year’s festival runs from March 12 to March 20, 2016.
The new CEO of Credit Suisse, a prominent Swiss bank, has proposed that its board make a “significant” cut in his bonus after the bank posted disappointing earnings last week and announced 4,000 job cuts. On Monday, Feb. 8, 2016, the bank confirmed comments made by Tidjane Thiam in an interview published a day earlier in Sonntags Zeitung and other German-language media. In an email from Credit Suisse’s press office, Thiam explained that he proposed the biggest cut among the bank’s management team because “[he] cannot demand sacrifices from others and not make any [himself].’”
Finally, the Toronto stock market closed down sharply on Monday, hurt by weakness in energy and financial stocks, as oil again fell below the US$30-a-barrel mark. This leaves March contracts for benchmark crude oil down $1.20 to US$29.69 a barrel. Additionally, the S&P/TSX composite index fell 228.59 points to end the day at 12,535.40. The Canadian dollar was off 0.13 of a U.S. cent to 71.77 cents US. In addition, banks and technology shares fell sharply Monday, with Facebook sinking four per cent and Amazon losing three per cent. The losses brought the Nasdaq composite index down almost 20 per cent from its record high last year.
The Dow Jones industrial average fell 177, or 1.1 per cent, to 16,027. It was down as much as 401 earlier. The S&P 500 lost 26 points, or 1.4 per cent, to 1,853. The Nasdaq sank 79 points, or 1.8 per cent, to 4,283. In good news, however, Canadian gold jumped four per cent on Monday. Overall, oil prices are hitting the country hard, but the slowing of the Chinese economy and the concerns surrounding the strength of the recovery in the United States have also caused the Canadian dollar and the Canadian economy to suffer.