Canada’s dollar strengthened versus its U.S. counterpart for the first time in four days on speculation it will weather a slowdown in global growth better than most of its developed-nation peers. The currency, often called the loonie, is trading at almost the highest level in four years versus the greenback as the economy recovers from the financial crisis and economists bet the nation’s central bank will raise interest rates this year. A government report later this week is expected to show employers added jobs for a fourth straight month. “The Canadian dollar still looks reasonably attractive against the majority of its peers,” Jeremy Stretch, head of currency strategy at Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, said by phone from London. “In an environment where we’re worried about things like fiscal positions and growth, clearly Canada isn’t immune to a slowdown in the U.S., but its domestic fundamentals are still reasonable and on the fiscal side it still looks favorable from a western, developed-economy standpoint.” The Canadian currency rose 0.1 percent to 96.01 cents per U.S. dollar at 7:51 a.m. in Toronto, compared with 96.13 cents yesterday. One Canadian dollar buys $1.0416. The loonie advanced today against nine of its 16 major counterparts, climbing the most against the franc after Switzerland’s central bank said it will take measures to weaken the currency if necessary. The franc has soared 23 percent in the past 12 months, making it the best-performing currency among 10 developed-nation peers in the Bloomberg Correlation-Weighted Currency Indexes. “I guess there was always going to come a point where the SNB felt compelled to do something,” CIBC’s Stretch said. To contact the reporter on this story: Chris Fournier in Halifax, Nova Scotia at cfournier3@bloomberg.net To contact the editor responsible for this story: Dave Liedtka at dliedtka@bloomberg.net

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