TORONTO: The Canadian dollar edged higher against its US counterpart on Thursday as the greenback pared some recent gains and oil firmed.
The US dollar dipped against a basket of major currencies, but posted a 7-month high intraday after minutes on Wednesday from the last US Federal Reserve meeting left a December interest rate hike in play.
Gains for the commodity-linked loonie were restrained as a sharp decline in China's exports revived concerns about the health of the world's second-biggest economy and weighed on global stock markets.
US crude prices were up 0.18 percent to $50.27 a barrel, gaining support from record Chinese imports.
At 9:18 a.m. EDT (1318 GMT), the Canadian dollar was trading at C$1.3240 to the greenback, or 75.53 US cents, stronger than Wednesday's close of C$1.3259, or 75.42 US cents.
The currency's strongest level of the session was C$1.3238, while it touched its weakest since Friday at C$1.3307, just shy of the more-than six-month low set on Friday at C$1.3315.
New home prices in Canada rose 0.2 percent in August, following a 0.4 percent monthly increase in July, Statistics Canada said. It left the index up 2.7 percent from a year earlier.
Separately, the Teranet-National Bank Composite House Price Index showed national home prices rose 0.8 percent last month from August. Prices were up 11.7 percent from a year earlier.
Canadian government bond prices were higher across the yield curve in sympathy with Treasuries as the disappointing Chinese data spurred risk aversion. The two-year rose 1.7 Canadian cents to yield 0.594 percent and the benchmark 10-year climbed 10 Canadian cents to yield 1.186 percent.
The 10-year spread versus Treasuries narrowed 1.9 basis points to -56.2 basis points as Treasuries outperformed.
Germany's Constitutional Court cleared the government to approve a trade accord between the European Union and Canada under defined conditions, boosting the agreement's chances of passing an EU vote next week.
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