You can sort of view the Canadian dollar as collateralized by its vast natural resources such as Gold, Uranium and Oil (nice things to have in a pinch). The socialist tendencies of the Canadian gov’t and people are also on the mend. Their federal gov’t’s finances is probably the best among the G7 now. The bottom line is that it is a politically and economically stable country w/ relatively sane fiscal and monetary policies. The wild card is Alberta and Quebec want to break free, but those possibilities are slight.

As far as the euro goes, the economonic and political situation in the euro zone does not justify the euro’s high price (in terms of USD). Sometime w/n the next 5 yrs, you will probably see some cracks in the European Union, starting, probably, w/ the basket case Italy in terms of currency crisis, or France, in terms of immigrant unrest,or Germany, in terms of a recession. Australian dollar and the British Pound have similar problems as the USD in terms of the twin deficits, so it’s not that much better than USD. The Swiss central bank has lost its Gold religion. In fact, they hired a bunch of MBAs and now fancy themselves as hedge fund managers, dabbling in corporates bonds, junk bonds, equities as reserve assets. Too kinky for my comfort.

As far as Asian currencies go, most of them are pegged to the USD, so not sure what you get for jumping into them. The only exception is the Singapore dollar. But inexplicably, CurrencyShares doesn’t offer the Singapore dollar in an ETF.