The Canadian dollar rose to its highest level in three weeks after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said the U.S. economy still isn’t strong enough to do without monetary stimulus. The loonie, as the currency is nicknamed, strengthened for a fourth day after minutes of the Fed’s June meeting released yesterday showed many officials wanted to see more signs employment is improving before backing a reduction to bond purchases. Canada’s dollar also strengthened versus the currencies of its commodity-exporting peers, Australia and New Zealand, before data forecast to show home prices rose in May. “Until Bernanke spoke yesterday, it’s been a general bullish U.S. dollar trend,� said David Bradley, director of foreign-exchange trading at Bank of Nova Scotia (BNS)’s capital markets unit, by phone from Toronto. “North America is going to outperform Europe in the long-term. So you’re going to see the U.S. dollar stronger and you’re going to see the Canadian dollar outperform its counterparts.� The loonie added 0.5 percent to C$1.0410 per U.S. dollar at 7:35 a.m. in Toronto. It touched C$1.0326, the strongest level since June 20. One loonie buys 96.05 U.S. cents. Home prices in Canada increased 0.2 percent in May, matching last month’s gain, according to the median estimate of a Bloomberg survey of nine economists. To contact the reporter on this story: Ari Altstedter in Toronto at aaltstedter@bloomberg.net To contact the editor responsible for this story: Dave Liedtka at dliedtka@bloomberg.net

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