Canada’s dollar weakened from a two- month high versus its U.S. counterpart before a report later this week that economists predict will show the nation’s employers added jobs. “The key on the data front is employment on both sides of the border on Friday,” Firas Askari, head currency trader in Toronto at Bank of Montreal, Canada’s fourth-largest lender, wrote in an e-mail. “The risk is now tilted to a bigger number out of Canada. In the interim, look to buy the Canadian dollar in the C$1.0350 area.” The Canadian currency traded at C$1.0210 per U.S. dollar at 8:19 a.m. in Toronto, compared with C$1.0197 on Oct. 1. It touched C$1.0180, the strongest since Aug. 6. One Canadian dollar buys 97.93 U.S. cents. Canada’s employers added 10,000 jobs to payrolls last month, after a 35,800 gain in August, according to the median of 16 economists’ forecasts compiled by Bloomberg News. Statistics Canada is due to release the report on Oct. 8 in Ottawa. Crude for November delivery fell as much as 81 cents, or 1 percent, to $80.77 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The Canadian currency tends to track movements in stocks and crude oil, the nation’s largest export. “With commodities also expected to be range-bound through year-end, drivers of significant Canadian-dollar strength from here seem few and far between,” Shaun Osborne and Jacqui Douglas, currency strategists at Toronto-Dominion Bank’s TD Securities unit, wrote in a note to clients today, citing Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney’s “cautious” comments on the economic outlook. To contact the reporter on this story: Chris Fournier in Montreal at cfournier3@bloomberg.net To contact the editor responsible for this story: Dave Liedtka at dliedtka@bloomberg.net

Source