3 Common Ways to Forecast Currency Exchange Rates

Currency exchange rate forecasts help brokers and businesses make better decisions. Purchasing power parity looks at the prices of goods in different countries and is one of the more widely used methods for forecasting exchange rates due to its indoctrination in textbooks. The relative economic strength approach compares levels of economic growth across countries to forecast exchange rates. Lastly, econometric models can consider a wide range of variables when attempting to understand trends in the currency markets.

According to purchasing power parity, a pencil in Canada should be the same price as a pencil in the United States after taking into account the exchange rate and excluding transaction and shipping costs. In other words, there should be no arbitrage opportunity for someone to buy inexpensive pencils in one country and sell them in another for a profit.