Canada is a commodity-based economy. The country has seen good times and bad times in this past year thanks to volatile crude oil prices. iShares MSCI Canada Index (ETF) (NYSE:EWC) and Royal Bank of Canada (NYSE:RY) were both on the losers list on December 2.

iShares MSCI Canada (EWC)

Daily Chart with InVivo Swing Trading Tools

There has also been some interesting news coming out of Canada of late:

• How high-risk mortgages crept north
  In the first half of this year, as the subprime mortgage crisis was exploding in the United States, a contagion of U.S.-style lending practices quietly crossed the border and infected Canada’s previously prudent mortgage regime. New mortgage borrowers signed up for an estimated $56-billion of risky 40-year mortgages, more than half of the total new mortgages approved by banks, trust companies and other lenders during that time, according to banking and insurance sources. Those sources estimated that 10 per cent of the mortgages, worth about $10-billion, were taken out with no money down. . . . Virtually unavailable in Canada two years ago, high-risk mortgages proliferated in 2007 and early 2008 and must now be shouldered by thousands of consumers at a time when the economy is sinking quickly and real-estate prices are swooning.
• Condo building boom screeches to a halt
  The housing starts fall was far steeper than had been expected, with the biggest drop in condominiums, according to Toronto-Dominion Bank economist Charmaine Buskas. The slowdown in residential housing activity is nowhere near as dire as the slump in the United States, Ms.