Canada’s dollar slid the most in almost three weeks versus its U.S. counterpart after a report showed retail sales fell five times faster in April than economists predicted. “Not great results by any stretch of the imagination,” Matthew Perrier, director of foreign exchange at Bank of Montreal, said by phone from Toronto. “Weaker-than-expected retail sales are adding to the bullish undertone of dollar- Canada at this point, taking us through the highs of last week, C$1.0362,” he said, referring to the greenback’s recent high against Canada’s currency. The Canadian dollar, known as the loonie, fell for a third day as sales declined 2 percent, Statistics Canada said today in Ottawa. The median forecast in a Bloomberg News survey was for a drop of 0.4 percent. The Canadian currency weakened 1.3 percent, the most on an intraday basis since June 4, to C$1.0432 per U.S. dollar at 9:39 a.m. in Toronto, compared with C$1.0296 yesterday. One Canadian dollar buys 95.97 U.S. cents. The loonie has gained 8.7 percent this year, according to Bloomberg Correlation-Weighted Currency Indices, the second-best performance among its 10 developed-world counterparts. It gained 4.3 percent between May 25 and June 18, tracking advances in crude oil and U.S. equities. The gains may be overdone, according to Michael Leavitt, a Montreal-based institutional- derivatives broker at MF Global Holdings Ltd. ‘Not Unexpected’ Today’s drop was “not unexpected, given the strong move over the last month,” Leavitt said by e-mail before the retail sales data was released. “Some consolidation may be in order here before making another move above par in the next quarter.” The loonie, so-called for the image of the aquatic bird on the one-dollar coin, reached parity for the first time in almost two years on April 6. It will strengthen to C$1.02 and then reach parity again by the end of the year, according to the median of 35 estimates in a Bloomberg survey.

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