On the last trading day of the year, Canada's currency, benchmark stock index and main export are all poised to finish 2015 in much worse shape than the start of the year.
Just before stock markets begin trading on Thursday, the S&P/TSX composite index is poised to open at 13,142 — down by a little over 10 per cent compared to where it was a year ago, when the index closed out 2014 at 14,632.
The TSX has been waylaid through much of the year by a Canadian economy that can't gain any traction, as economic output was either flat or in outright recession for large swathes of the year.
"It's fair to say that 2015 was not a great year for the Canadian economy or its forecasters alike," TD Bank economist Leslie Preston wrote in a research note this week.
The TSX's biggest drag has been oil prices, which this year continued the decline they started in the latter half of 2014.
Since Dec. 31 last year, the price of a barrel of West Texas Intermediate has lost 38.6 per cent in 2015, far and away its worst year since the global financial crisis in 2009.
The price of WTI was down another 31 cents, at $36.29 US, early Thursday. Oil from Canada's oilsands is even lower, with the oil blend known as Western Canada Select changing hands at $23.13 US a barrel.
Oil's slide has been devastating news for the Canadian dollar, which is on track for its second worst year on record, down 17 per cent this year. That's almost as bad as the worst year ever, when the loonie lost 18.6 per cent of its value in 2008.
"To put this year's carnage in perspective," BMO economist Doug Porter said recently, "the third worst year was 1992, when it fell by just over nine per cent."
The loonie was changing hands at 72.07 cents US on Thursday, up slightly from Wednesday's close.
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