Turkish Lira hits a record low as the head of the Turkish Central Bank gets fired

Today's expected range for the Canadian Dollar against the major currencies:

US Dollar         1.2450-1.2550

Euro                 1.4850-1.4950

Sterling            1.7250-1.7350

The US Dollar Index is marginally stronger in early European trading but that was after it had traded weaker for most of the session. The overnight news that riled currency markets was the Turkish Lira hitting a record low on the news that President Erdogan fired the head of the Turkish Central Bank after Turkish interest rates hit 19% in order to fight runaway inflation in that country. Both Stocks and the Dollar took a tumble on the back of this news and look set to open lower this morning.

The Canadian Dollar has held onto recent strength as USD.CAD opens the last week of March at the 1.2480 (0.8012) and it was able to pick up some gains against both the Euro and Pound so overall a good start to the week for the Loonie. I am not sure there is enough positive news surrounding the Loonie for it to extend these gains this week but that all depends on what happens with the US Dollar.

It is a relatively quiet week on the calendar so I would expect currency markets to keep an eye on the US interest rates to get their direction this week. For the moment it looks like stocks will trade weaker but on the positive side tech stocks look set to recover somewhat so that should help the markets a little.