Canada’s dollar was little changed against its U.S. counterpart before findings later today on the health of U.S. banks and reports tomorrow on Canadian and American jobs. “There’s optimism but gauging that optimism continues to be the overriding theme,” said Jack Spitz, managing director of foreign exchange at National Bank of Canada in Toronto. “There’s likely to be some choppy trading this afternoon ahead of this announcement of the stress test results, then some position squaring ahead of the payroll numbers tomorrow.” The Canadian currency traded at C$1.1648 per U.S. dollar at 8:09 a.m. in Toronto, from C$1.1658 yesterday. It earlier strengthened to C$1.1631, the highest level since Nov. 6. One Canadian dollar buys 85.85 U.S. cents. Federal Reserve stress tests on the 19 biggest lenders show Bank of America Corp., Wells Fargo & Co. and Citigroup Inc. together require about $54 billion, said people familiar with the conclusions. At the same time, Goldman Sachs Group Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Bank of New York Mellon Corp. have enough capital to help prop up flows of credit to businesses and consumers grappling with the worst recession in more than five decades. The results will be released at 5 p.m. in Washington.

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