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How Currency Fluctuations Impact Canadian Investors

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How Currency Fluctuations Impact Canadian Investors

How Currency Fluctuations Impact Canadian Investors

For many Canadians, currency movements are an everyday part of life.

When the Canadian dollar is strong, it means that going south of the border is cheaper. Whether it’s a vacation in Hawaii or a shopping spree in New York City, a strong Canadian dollar can buy more in terms of U.S. dollars.

Likewise, a weak Canadian dollar can buy fewer U.S. dollars – meaning that travel, shopping, and other expenses in U.S. dollars are more expensive.

The Same Effect

The impact of currency fluctuations isn’t limited only to foreign purchases.

In fact, as today’s infographic from Fidelity Investments Canada shows, these same fluctuations can also affect the performance of your portfolio.

Why is that the case?

Many Canadian portfolios have exposure to American-listed companies such as Apple, Wells Fargo, Tesla, or Johnson & Johnson. As a result, fluctuations in the USD/CAD rate can have a profound impact on how these investments perform in Canadian dollars.

How Does This Work?

Here’s an example of the impact of currency in action:

  • A Canadian investor puts $100 CAD into a fund that buys U.S. stocks
  • At the time of investment, $1 CAD buys $0.80 USD
  • After exchange, $80 USD is invested in the U.S. market
  • The U.S. market goes up 10% in one year, and is now worth $88 USD
  • However, over the year, the exchange rate changed to $1 CAD per $0.85 USD
  • Converted back to Canadian dollars, at the new rate, the $88 USD is now worth $103.52 CAD, which is just a 3.5% gain in domestic Canadian currency

In the above case, a strengthening Canadian dollar ends up dampening the returns coming from the U.S. market.

In contrast, if the exchange rate went the other direction – meaning Canadian dollar was weakening – any returns would actually amplify.

Long-Term Planning

If currency fluctuations can have a substantial impact on investments, what does this mean for portfolio construction and assessing risk?

There are two main schools of thought on this:

Hedged: Some funds use a hedging strategy to try and cancel out any currency fluctuations. Ideally, the end result of this would be representative performance of the U.S. market.

Unhedged: This strategy does not try to anticipate currency fluctuations, since the long-term effects of currency movements tend to even out over time.

According to Fidelity Investments Canada, over the 20-year period of November 28, 1997 to November 30, 2017, the impact of currency fluctuations on the S&P 500 had a difference in annualized returns of 0.5%.

In other words, U.S. dollars invested in the S&P 500 had a 7.2% return, while Canadian dollars invested in the same stocks had a 6.7% return after adjusting for exchange rates.

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Investor Education

Visualized: A Step-by-Step Guide to Tax-Loss Harvesting

In Canada, tax-loss harvesting allows investors to turn losses into tax savings. This graphic breaks down how it works in four simple steps.

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An illustrative graphic showing part of the steps in tax-loss harvesting, including selling a $50,000 investment with a $10,000 loss.

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The following content is sponsored by Fidelity Investments

A Step-by-Step Guide to Tax-Loss Harvesting

Market ups and downs can be unnerving, but the good news is that tax-loss harvesting allows investors in Canada to capture tax savings when their portfolio drops in value.

While it sounds complicated, a tax-loss harvesting strategy is actually fairly straightforward. An investor can use capital losses to offset capital gains found elsewhere in their portfolio, leading to a lower tax bill. While there are important conditions to keep in mind, investors can use this strategy to enhance portfolio returns over time by reinvesting these tax savings.

This graphic from Fidelity Investments shows how tax-loss harvesting works and why it may improve tax efficiency in an investor’s portfolio.

Breaking It Down

Consider a person who invested $50,000 in a mutual fund held in a non-registered account that has dropped by $10,000 in value. To help minimize losses, they took the following steps in a tax-loss harvesting strategy.

For the sake of this example, taxes are based on the maximum federal rate and the average maximum provincial tax rate.

  1. Sold investment with a $10,000 loss
  2. Invested $40,000 into a different mutual fund
  3. Used the $10,000 capital loss to offset capital gains realized elsewhere in the non-registered portfolio
  4. Achieved up to $2,550 in tax savings

The investor realized as much as $2,550 in tax savings by utilizing a $10,000 loss against a $10,000 capital gain. Without tax-loss harvesting, this $10,000 capital gain would be taxed at a 50% capital gains inclusion rate ($10,000 X 50% = $5,000). This $5,000 in applicable gains is then taxed at a 51% combined federal and provincial tax rate ($5,000 X 51% = $2,550 in taxes owed).

In contrast, by using tax-loss harvesting, the investor would have achieved up to $2,550 in tax savings.

What’s more, you can reinvest your tax savings over each year—which may help boost portfolio returns over time if the new investment increases in value.

Tax-Loss Harvesting Tips

With a tax-loss harvesting strategy, here are some key tips and considerations to keep in mind:

  • Investment Timeline: A capital loss can be used to offset capital gains not only in the current year, but in the three years prior and/or any year indefinitely in the future.
  • New Investment Type: After selling an investment that’s dropped in value, it’s important to buy a different investment to avoid triggering the ‘superficial loss rule’. Investors can aim to choose an investment with similar long-term returns.
  • Plan for Year-End: In order to achieve a capital loss, plan to sell an investment at least two to three days before the year’s final trading day so the investment settles before year-end.

Together, these tips can help investors strategically execute a tax-loss harvesting strategy.

Tax Made Easier

During volatile markets, investors can seize the opportunity to turn losses into tax savings using tax-loss harvesting as a key tool to help generate higher after-tax returns.

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Explore Fidelity’s tax calculator to discover tax-saving opportunities.

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