The Canadian dollar lost ground against the US dollar and the Japanese yen in early New York deals on Tuesday. The petro-linked loonie weakened as oil prices plunged today morning following more dismal economic data from the U.S. added the demand concerns. Light sweet crude for March delivery dropped to $43.41, down $2.32 on the session. Prices touched as low as $43.39, after climbing as high as $47.49 early on. The Canadian dollar reached as low as 1.232 against the greenback by 10:10 am ET, compared to a session's high 1.2155. The greenback-loonie pair is presently trading at 1.2295, compared to yesterday's close of 1.2229. Data released today from the U.S. showed that the S&P/Case-Shiller 20-City Composite Home Price Index fell 18.2 percent year-over-year in November, representing a slight acceleration from the 18.0 percent year-over-year decline reported for October. Meanwhile, a Conference Board report showed that the consumer confidence index fell to 37.7 in January from a revised 38.6 in December. Economists had been expecting the index to come in unchanged compared to the reading of 38.0 originally reported for the previous month. The Canadian dollar also drifted lower to 71.91 against the Japanese yen by this time. This may be compared to early European session's 13-day high of 73.95. The loonie-yen pair is presently trading at 72.13, compared to yesterday's close of 72.91. The Bank of Japan said in a preliminary report that Japan's index measuring corporate service prices was down 2.5% on year in December, posting a reading of 92.8. That came in slightly worse than analyst expectations for a 2.4% annual decline following the 1.9% annual contraction in November. Meanwhile, minutes from the Bank of Japan's policy meeting on December 18 and 19 meeting revealed that in trimming the overnight call rate by 20 basis points to 0.10%, some board members called current economic conditions "an emergency." The minutes also showed that all of the board members expect financial conditions to worsen further, and some expect the Japanese economy to contract in fiscal years 2008 and 2009. Financial conditions are "deteriorating sharply," the minutes continued, adding that "drastic measures" were needed. Against the euro, the Canadian dollar drifted higher to 1.6140 by 10:25 am ET due to across the board weakening of the latter. The euro-loonie pair is presently worth 1.6152, compared to yesterday's close of 1.6129.

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