BLBG: Canadian Dollar Declines Amid Concern Employment Growth is Slowing
Canada’s dollar fell against most of its major counterparts before a report tomorrow that economists predict will show the nation’s job creation is slowing.
The loonie, as the Canadian currency it’s nicknamed, touched the lowest level versus the greenback in more than a year two days ago on speculation a slowing U.S. economy will crimp demand for Canada’s exports of raw materials. It fell today against its commodity-exporting peers as investors sold the loonie to buy the dollars of Australia and New Zealand amid a rally in stocks and oil.
“Historically, Canada is the low-beta currency within the commodity block so as risk appetite emerges, investors tend to go long the higher-beta currencies and sometimes fund it out of the lower beta currencies,” said Paresh Upadhyaya, head of Americas G-10 currency strategy at Bank of America Corp. in New York, in a telephone interview today. Beta refers to a currency’s sensitivity to changes in another variable.
The Canadian currency weakened 0.4 percent to C$1.0439 per U.S. dollar at 8:01 a.m. in Toronto, compared with C$1.0402 yesterday. It touched C$1.0658 on Oct. 4, the weakest level since August 2010. One Canadian dollar buys 95.80 U.S. cents.
Canadian employers added 15,000 jobs in September after cutting 5,500 positions in August, according to the median of 25 estimates compiled by Bloomberg. That would mean employers added 16,500 jobs in the third quarter, compared with 109,000 in the second quarter and 82,800 in the first three months of the year. Statistics Canada is due to report the employment data tomorrow at 7 a.m. in Ottawa.
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