The Canadian dollar traded within one cent of parity with the greenback as the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index erased gains to close little changed. “As equities weakened off this morning, so too did the Canadian dollar, and since then it really has traded tick for tick with price action in the stock market,” said Blake Jespersen, director of foreign exchange in Toronto at Bank of Montreal’s BMO Capital Markets unit, in a telephone interview. “We continue to gravitate around the 99 cent level.” Canada’s currency fetched 99.05 cents per U.S. dollar at 5 p.m. in Toronto, compared with 99.01 on Aug. 19. One Canadian dollar buys $1.0096. The loonie earlier today advanced as much as 0.7 percent. The currency depreciated on Aug. 9 to C$1.0010, trading weaker than parity for the first time since February. “It would take a major crisis for the loonie to go through parity in the short term,” said Jerome Bernier, managing director of foreign exchange at National Bank Financial Inc. in Montreal. “We’ve seen a lot of corporate clients use the rebound in the U.S. dollar to sell the greenback at these levels.” Yields on 10-year government bonds were little changed at 2.3 percent, while the price of the 3.25 percent securities maturing in June 2021 rose 1 cent to C$108.27. The yields fell on Aug. 18 to 2.25 percent, the lowest level in Bloomberg data beginning in 1989. Retail Sales Retail sales climbed 0.7 percent in June after a 0.1 percent increase in the previous month, according to the median forecast of 21 economists in a Bloomberg News survey before tomorrow’s report from Statistics Canada. Such a gain would be the largest since a 1.5 percent advance in November. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index was little changed after rallying as much as 2 percent earlier today. Canada’s S&P/TSX Composite Index advanced 0.5 percent after increasing as much as 1.8 percent. Futures on crude oil, Canada’s biggest export, rose 2.3 percent to $84.12 a barrel in New York after rallying 2.9 percent earlier. Gold topped $1,900 an ounce for the first time. Brent oil futures fell in London on speculation Libyan production will recover after rebels entered the capital city of Tripoli and said Muammar Qaddafi’s rule has ended. “Libya will be a net negative for the loonie in the long run because it will take out some of the risk premium that’s built into oil,” said Rahim Madhavji, president of Knightsbridge Foreign Exchange Inc., in a telephone interview from Toronto. Jackson Hole Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke is scheduled to speak at a central bank meeting on Aug. 26 in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Some investors are betting he will hint at a third round of asset purchases known as quantitative easing to stimulate the economy, according to BMO’s Jespersen. “It seems the market is paralyzed as it waits for a potential QE3 on Friday,” said Jespersen. “We’re doubtful that Mr. Bernanke is going to unveil a QE3, but some in the market are hopeful.” The loonie has weakened 5.4 percent this year, according to Bloomberg Correlation-Weighted Currency Indexes, a gauge of 10 developed-nation currencies. The greenback has fallen 6.1 percent, and the yen has lost 0.3 percent. To contact the reporters on this story: Frederic Tomesco in Montreal at tomesco@bloomberg.net; Allison Bennett in New York at abennett23@bloomberg.net To contact the editor responsible for this story: Dave Liedtka at dliedtka@bloomberg.net

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