FS: Canada Dollar declines against a struggling greenback
The U.S. dollar declined against most of its rivals Monday, but managed a modest gain against the Canadian dollar as global growth worries prompted investors to sell North America.
The U.S. dollar was at C$1.0444 at 3:00 p.m. EDT (1900 GMT) from C$1.0430 at 8:00 a.m. EDT (1200 GMT), and from C$1.0421 late Friday.
"The Canadian dollar has just been trading lock-step with equities. When they were positive earlier in the day, Canada was at our best levels, and it has weakened off a little bit as equities go negative into the close," said Matt Perrier, director of foreign-exchange sales at BMO Capital Markets in Toronto.
Market sentiment dimmed early Monday as disappointing U.S. and Japanese data stirred concerns about global growth.
The Canadian currency made modest moves throughout the day, remaining within "very familiar ranges," said Matthew Strauss, senior currency strategist at RBC Capital Markets in Toronto.
From both a fundamental and a technical perspective, "no direction was provided," Strauss said.
Worse-than-expected Japanese gross domestic product data sparked a risk-averse sentiment that lingered into the North American morning, "but that quickly dissipated," Strauss said.
"We have seen in equities a stronger risk aversion during that latter part of last week, and starting this week, the market was undecided on which way to fall," he said.
As they search for the market's next turn, investors on Tuesday will be closely watching an Irish debt auction, and the release of Germany's ZEW business-sentiment survey. Economists expect the index to stabilize after three months of decline, as confidence rebounds following strong manufacturing orders.
In the U.S., the producer price index for July is due, along with July housing starts, building permits, and industrial production and capacity utilization.
The data calendar in Canada is light this week, until Friday's release of the July consumer price data.
Canada also performed weaker Monday against the euro and the Japanese yen.
These are the exchange rates at 3:00 p.m. EDT (1900 GMT), 8:00 a.m. EDT (1200 GMT), and late Friday.
