TORONTO: The Canadian dollar weakened against its US counterpart on Wednesday, pulling back from a nearly 10-month high the day before, as oil prices fell and attention moved to minutes from the US Federal Reserve's last meeting.
Oil prices ended their longest bull run in more than five years, as climbing Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries' exports and a stronger dollar turned sentiment more bearish.
US crude prices were down 1.04 percent at $46.58 a barrel.
The US dollar rose against a basket of major currencies ahead of the Fed minutes. US manufacturing data on Monday had boosted expectations the Fed would raise interest rates again this year.
At 9:24 a.m. ET (1324 GMT), the Canadian dollar was trading at C$1.2967 to the greenback, or 77.12 US cents, down 0.2 percent.
The currency traded in a range of C$1.2930 to C$1.2975.
On Tuesday, the loonie touched its strongest since September at C$1.2912 as Bank of Canada Governor Stephen Poloz added more support to the view the central bank will raise interest rates as early as next week.
Chances of a rate hike on July 12 have increased to nearly 80 percent from less than 5 percent before top Bank of Canada officials asserted in June that a pair of 2015 interest rate cuts had done their job in cushioning the economy from collapsing oil prices, data from the overnight index swaps market shows.
Canadian government bond prices were higher across the yield curve, with the two-year up 3 Canadian cents to yield 1.123 percent and the 10-year rising 18 Canadian cents to yield 1.818 percent.
Earlier in the session, the 2-year yield reached its highest since October 2014 at 1.143 percent.
Canada's trade data for May is due on Thursday and the June employment report is due on Friday.
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