Canada’s dollar strengthened against the greenback and the euro to the highest levels in more than a month after an ADP Employer Services report showed U.S. companies added more jobs in June than forecast. The Canadian dollar, also known as the loonie, topped all 16 of its most-traded peers, appreciating more than 1 percent versus the yen after the European Central Bank raised interest rates and as gains in copper and crude oil made currencies linked to raw materials more attractive. “If the U.S. does better, then countries linked to it are expected to outperform,” Sebastien Galy, a foreign-exchange strategist at Societe Generale SA in London, wrote in an e-mail. “The Canadian dollar and the Mexican peso were immediate recipients of fast-money flows on the back of the ADP.” The Canadian currency rose 0.8 percent to 95.77 cents per U.S. dollar at 8:07 a.m. in Toronto, the strongest since May 11. One Canadian dollar buys $1.0442. The loonie strengthened 1 percent to C$1.3782 per euro at, the strongest since May 16. It rose 1.1 percent to 84.76 cents per yen, the strongest since May 19. Crude oil futures rose 2.1 percent to $98.71 a barrel in New York. Crude is Canada’s largest export. Copper for September delivery advanced 3.1 cents, or 0.7 percent, to $4.366 a pound on the Comex in New York. Canada derives about half its export revenue from raw materials. ECB Move Officials meeting in Frankfurt today increased the benchmark interest rate by 25 basis points to 1.5 percent, matching forecasts by all 55 economists in a Bloomberg News survey. That’s the highest since March 2009. The central bank will raise borrowing costs further in October, according to a separate survey. Companies in the U.S. added 157,000 workers to their payrolls in June, according to ADP figures, more than double the median estimate of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News, which called for gains of 70,000. The data comes before the government’s June payrolls report tomorrow. “Over the last week and a half we’ve seen a general improvement in risk appetite,” said Adrian Schmidt, a currency strategist at Lloyds Banking Group Plc in London. “The bigger questions are all about how risk performs in general, about how equities perform in general, how commodities perform in general following the U.S. numbers later in the week.” Canada’s economy added 15,000 jobs in June, after boosting payrolls by a net 22,300 positions in May and 58,300 in April, according to the median forecast of 23 economists surveyed by Bloomberg before Statistics Canada data tomorrow. The jobless rate held at 7.4 percent, according to the survey. Canada’s new home price index rose 0.4 percent in May, twice the pace estimated by analysts, based on gains in the country’s two largest cities. The selling price of new dwellings rose 0.9 percent in Toronto during the month, and by 0.5 percent in Montreal, Statistics Canada said today in Ottawa. Economists predicted the overall index would rise 0.2 percent in May following April’s 0.3 percent gain, according to the median estimate in a Bloomberg survey with 10 responses. 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

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