CANADIAN ECONOMY TAKES
A HIT IN 2015
A
s 2015 came to a close, no one
was surprised to see the Cana-
dian dollar or the country’s stock
index close at an annual low.
On the final day of trading, the loonie was
being sold for just over 72 cents US, a drop
of about 16 percent over the course of the
year. It marks the second worst year for the
currency on record, which lost more than
18 percent of its value in 2008 — a shock-
ing turn after the dollar’s performance in
2007 when it closed above the U.S. dollar
for the first time in 30 years.
At the end of last year, the S&P/TSX com-
posite index was down about 132 points,
a decrease of about 11 per cent compared
to where it sat a year earlier. After peak-
ing at 15,524 in mid-April 2015, the stock
10 business elite canada
H
JANUARY 2016
