Queenback to Greenback

January 2, 2009 8:14 AM

Who will tell me when the Canadian dollar rises again?

As a Canadian student going to school in the US, I make regular tuition payments in USD. My payments are spread over six-week increments, which means that I can to schedule my purchases of US dollars in order to get the best rate. I'd like to avoid constantly staying glued to Google Finance, but neither Google nor Yahoo allow you to add currency to your portfolios. Is there a service that will just email me when the Canadian dollar hits USD$0.84, for example?

This question could apply to anything traded, I suppose.

posted by awenner to work & money (7 comments total)

XE.com has a service that will e-mail you every day to tell you what an exchange rate is. I know this is not the automatic e-mail you are interested in, but something coming to your inbox every day might still help and would save you seeking out the information all the time.
posted by snugglebunny at 8:25 AM on January 2

XE.com offers all sorts of syndication (via email, website widgets, etc) for rates.

I can't link directly to it, but do a conversion and look under "Quick links."
posted by nitsuj at 8:25 AM on January 2

Yahoo does seem to have CADUSD available as a stock-like symbol, that you can add to your portfolio or set an alert on.
posted by smackfu at 8:32 AM on January 2

(Side question: are they really called queenabcks? I love that.)
posted by mdonley at 10:11 AM on January 2

@mdonley: I've never heard of "queenbacks" although it's cute. But our banknotes start with a $5 bill; it's blue and has a picture of former prime minister Sir Wilfrid Laurier on it. The $20 is greenish and has QE2 on it. Our $1 and $2 are coins, commonly referred to as a "loonie" (it has a picture of a loon on the reverse, QE2 on the obverse) and a "toonie".
posted by angiep at 10:43 AM on January 2

schedule my purchases of US dollars in order to get the best rate

A word of caution: you're not going to be able to tell that you're getting a good rate. What it's worth now is what it's worth, and nobody will be able to tell you for sure whether it's going up or down.

Other than luck, there's absolutely no way to schedule payments to get a better overall exchange rate.
posted by oaf at 7:07 AM on January 3

EX.com almost does what you want. I use XE.com on a regular basis to transfer payments abroad. IIRC there is a feature that enables you to have the payment executed at a certain rate that you determine i.e. $0.84. This assumes that you will have some flexibility on when payments are sent or that you are willing to monitor the status before a deadline arrives.

I suppose you could use this and then, if you've arrived at the deadline and your target wasn't reached, bite the bullet at the prevailing rate.
posted by Umhlangan at 7:29 AM on January 4