TORONTO The Canadian dollar was slightly lower against the American currency Tuesday morning.
The loonie moved down 0.25 of a cent to 103.83 cents US as the currency failed to find lift from higher prices for oil and gold.
The August crude contract on the New York Mercantile Exchange ran up 74 cents from last Friday’s close to US$95.68 a barrel.
Gold prices also climbed with the August contract on the Nymex ahead $20.90 to US$1,503.50 an ounce.
Copper prices weakened, down a penny to US$4.29 in New York.
Analysts noted that the currency was vulnerable to a retracement following a sharp advance last week.
“Look for the loonie to potentially give back some ground on profit taking as we had a big move pretty quick, while a strong employment report on Friday could be the catalyst for the loonie to gain further ground,” said Rahim Madhavji of Knightsbridge Foreign Exchange.
Economists expect that about 15,000 jobs were created last month.
On the same day, markets will anxiously scan the U.S. non-farm payrolls report for June. Expectations were modest with analysts expecting that the economy cranked out about 90,000 jobs.
On Tuesday, traders also took in data which showed that retail sales in the 17 euro countries dropped by 1.1 per cent during May in a further sign that the eurozone economy is slowing down sharply from a largely export-based rebound.
There was also speculation that the People’s Bank of China may raise interest rates again — as soon as this weekend — to keep a lid on high inflation.
Worries that Greece may end up defaulting on its massive debts continued to cast a shadow over markets. On Monday, ratings agency Standard & Poor’s warned that a plan for French banks to rollover the country’s debts would be considered a Greek debt default.
