April Fool's joke helps sink loonie
Fake report said Finance Minister to quit
By MARIAN STINSON
MONEY MARKETS REPORTER; With files from Heather Scoffield in the Ottawa bureau
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Tuesday, April 2, 2002 – Page B1
An April Fool's joke helped sink the loonie yesterday after a fake story saying Finance Minister Paul Martin was leaving politics to breed cattle and ducks was posted on a Web site.
The dollar fell to 62.41 cents (U.S.) from 62.73 cents late Thursday as North American markets opened after the Easter holiday. It ended the day at 62.55 cents, down 0.18 cents from Thursday's close.
Observers said the joke item was a contributing factor in thin, nervous trading, and the decline illustrated the recent weakness in the currency.
The report about Mr. Martin's pending departure, carried on the political gossip Web site bourque.org, said the Finance Minister would resign his seat and that an official announcement was expected yesterday.
The story said Mr. Martin "will retire to a quieter life outside the limelight to devote greater time to his wife and a burgeoning hobby interest in the breeding of prize Charolais cattle and handsome 'Fawn Runner' ducks which he plans to show this fall at the Brome Lake & Havelock fairs."
Advisers to Mr. Martin denied there was any truth to the story. "There's absolutely nothing to this," spokesman Brian Guest said.
The Web site's author, Pierre Bourque, said he was taken aback by the reaction. "It is April 1, after all," he told Reuters News Service. "The ducks were the tell-tale sign."
The item said the Finance Minister had decided that the leadership of the Liberal Party and office of Prime Minister were no longer within his reach.
The Web site later added a link to its blurb about Mr. Martin showing explicitly that the story was an April Fool's joke. After the dollar started dropping and media calls came flooding in, Mr. Martin's staff sent the Web site a note yesterday morning suggesting such a link be added.
A bourque.org headline about Mr. Martin leaving politics was picked up by The Gartman Letter, a daily e-mail newsletter widely followed in financial markets, followed by a correction later in the day.
Dennis Gartman, editor of the newsletter, said he quickly read the story in an e-mail at 2:45 a.m. while compiling his daily comments, and deleted other material to make space for the headline without reading all the way through.
"We take our jobs seriously, and we have never been known to play jokes on people," Mr. Gartman said in an e-mail apologizing for the error. "But we have been embarrassed . . . badly, thoroughly and utterly . . . today in falling for what is now clearly an April Fool's joke played upon us by a news source in Canada.
"I've worked 16 years to create a reputation . . . I never thought someone would do this," Mr. Gartman said, adding that he hoped the information had not contributed to the decline in the currency.
Analysts said the dollar was on a weak footing, and the selling was exacerbated by thin trading because of the Easter holiday.
"The Martin resignation was debunked . . . but the selling showed the currency is vulnerable to political winds in Ottawa," said Rob Wittman, managing director of foreign exchange at Royal Bank of Canada. "It shows the credibility Mr. Martin has achieved in 10 years in Ottawa."
Mr. Martin is highly respected in the business community for balancing the federal budget, ending 25 years of deficits.
Weakness in the equity markets has contributed to the selloff of North American currencies yesterday, an analyst said. "We're seeing a sell-North-America theme," said Andrew Pyle, an economist with Bank of Nova Scotia.
The rumour about Mr. Martin "was as lame as the ducks he was supposedly retiring to look after," Mr. Pyle said. "But it did push the dollar above $1.60 [Canadian, or 62.50 cents U.S.], and has therefore reinforced the negative sentiment that was already developing on issues like softwood lumber."
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