Canada’s currency fell for the second day after a government report showed the nation unexpectedly recorded its first monthly trade deficit in more than thirty years, driving investors toward the relative safety of the U.S. dollar and Japanese yen. “Another one bites the dust,” said Martin Lefebvre, a senior economist at Montreal’s Desjardins Group. “Support for the loonie is vanishing day after day. Nobody is buying our exports.” The Canadian dollar fell 0.7 percent to C$1.2503 per U.S. dollar at 8:57 a.m. in Toronto, from C$1.2476 yesterday. One Canadian dollar buys 79.98 U.S. cents. Canada recorded a deficit for December of C$458 million ($373 million), the first trade gap since March 1976, as demand for commodities tumbled, the nation’s statistics office said today. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg anticipated a surplus of C$500 million, the median of 17 estimates. The loonie, as Canada’s is known, depreciated yesterday the most since Jan. 12 as speculation U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner’s plan to rescue U.S. banks will prove inadequate spurred an increase in risk aversion. Canada’s currency will weaken to C$1.25 against the U.S. dollar by the end of March before rebounding to C$1.20 by year- end, according to the median forecast in a Bloomberg News survey of 44 economists.

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