By Chris Fournier Dec. 10 (Bloomberg) -- Canada’s currency strengthened against its U.S. counterpart as commodities such as crude oil gained and U.S. stock-index futures advanced. “Crude’s up and that’s going to underpin the Canadian dollar,” said Jack Spitz, managing director of foreign exchange at National Bank of Canada in Toronto. Investors “seem to be biased toward buying equities rather than selling them so that would be helping the Canadian dollar as well.” The Canadian dollar climbed 0.2 percent to C$1.2606 per U.S. dollar at 8:11 a.m. in Toronto, from C$1.2626 yesterday. One Canadian dollar buys 79.33 U.S. cents. National Bank predicts the currency will strengthen to C$1.22 by year-end. Crude oil futures for January delivery rose as much as 4.5 percent to $43.96 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Oil accounts for 21 percent of the Bank of Canada’s Commodity Price Index, the largest component. The Canadian dollar rises 0.3 cents for every $1 gain in the price of the commodity, according to a study at TD Securities Inc., a unit of Canada’s second-largest bank. Futures on the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index expiring in December added 0.8 percent to 896.3, while Dow Jones Industrial Average futures rose 1.4 percent to 8,842. The MSCI World, a benchmark index for 23 developed markets, advanced 0.5 percent to 891.76. To contact the reporter on this story: Chris Fournier in Montreal at cfournier3@bloomberg.net

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