BLBG: Canada Dollar Erases Gain as U.S. Jobless Claims Spur Taper Bets
The Canadian dollar erased gains as better-than-forecast U.S. jobless claims spurred bets the Federal Reserve may let borrowing costs rise by trimming bond-buying as the Bank of Canada keeps interest rates on hold.
The currency fell to its lowest level in almost four years against the euro as European Central Bank President Mario Draghi gave no indication that policy makers will introduce a negative deposit rate to spur growth. It rose earlier against its U.S. peer after falling yesterday to C$1.07 per U.S. dollar for the first time in three years as the central bank warned of low inflation. Both nations report employment figures tomorrow.
“U.S. data was good -- that’s shifting buying to the U.S. dollar,” said John Curran, senior vice president at Canadian Forex Ltd., an online foreign-exchange dealer, said by phone from Toronto. “The U.S. jobs number tomorrow is going to set the tone for the rest of the year.”
The loonie, as the Canadian dollar is known for the image of the aquatic bird on the C$1 coin, was little changed at C$1.0685 per U.S. dollar at 9:31 a.m. in Toronto. Yesterday it fell as low as C$1.0707 per U.S. dollar, the weakest since May 2010. One loonie buys 93.59 U.S. cents. It touched C$1.4588 per euro, the lowest since February 2010.
To contact the reporters on this story: Ari Altstedter in Toronto at aaltstedter@bloomberg.net; Andrea Wong in New York at awong268@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Dave Liedtka at dliedtka@bloomberg.net
