BLBG: Canadian Dollar Is Little Changed After GM Cuts Jobs, Dealers
Canada’s dollar was little changed after paring earlier losses as General Motors Corp. increased the number of dealer shutdowns and job cuts and offered equity to bondholders in an effort to stave off bankruptcy.
The Canadian currency gained last week after the Bank of Canada in its Monetary Policy Report refrained from immediately deploying a policy of printing money to buy debt assets.
“I think this auto news is helping short-term,” said Steve Butler, director of foreign-exchange trading in Toronto at Scotia Capital Inc., a unit of Canada’s third-largest bank. “The Canadian dollar will be a bit of an outperformer after the Bank of Canada’s MPR last week.”
Canada’s dollar, known as the loonie, traded at C$1.2099 per U.S. dollar at 9:54 p.m. in Toronto, from C$1.2096 on April 24. It earlier depreciated as much as 0.8 percent. One Canadian dollar buys 82.65 U.S. cents.
GM will reduce the number of dealers 42 percent to 3,600 and drop more union and salaried jobs by the end of 2010, according to a regulatory filing today. Holders of $27.5 billion in bonds would receive 225 shares of stock for each $1,000 in principal.