BLBG: Canada’s Currency Is Little Changed as Crude, Copper Decline
Canada’s currency was little changed against its U.S. counterpart as commodities fell and stock futures gained.
Crude oil, which accounts for about a tenth of Canada’s export revenue, dropped from near a four-month high, and copper for delivery in three months declined. Futures on the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index rose.
“The market still remains skeptical about the equity performance,” said Jonathan Gencher, Toronto-based director of currency sales at BMO Capital Markets, a unit of Canada’s fourth-largest bank. “We can have a bounce, but is that the correction? Is it the bottom, or just market noise more than anything else?”
Canada’s dollar, known as the loonie, rose 0.1 percent to C$1.2304 per U.S. dollar at 8:45 a.m. in Toronto, from C$1.2321. It gained the most last week since December after the Federal Reserve’s decision to buy Treasuries sparked a rally in commodity prices. One Canadian dollar buys 81.27 U.S. cents.
The loonie weakened yesterday after rallying on March 23 as the U.S. Treasury announced a plan aimed at financing as much as $1 trillion in purchases of distressed assets from banks to help revive the economy.
The Canadian currency on March 9 touched C$1.3064, the weakest since Sept. 2, 2004, on concern that the global recession will worsen, crimping demand for commodities, which account for about half of the country’s export revenue.