C$ dips as investors assess commodity-linked currency bets

TORONTO: The Canadian dollar edged lower against its US counterpart on Tuesday as investors assessed bets on commodity-linked currencies and weighed gloomy remarks by Canada's chief negotiator at talks to modernize NAFTA.

At 4 p.m. EST (2100 GMT), the Canadian dollar CAD=D4 was trading 0.1 percent lower at C$1.2595 to the greenback, or 79.40 US cents. The currency traded in a range of $1.2567 to C$1.2625.

The loonie, which has fallen 2.6 percent since the sell-off on Wall Street began earlier this month, lagged the performance of some other major currencies, including the euro and the yen. Fellow commodity-linked currency, the Australian dollar, also underperformed.

"A lot of it has to do with position squaring and how sensitive these (commodity-linked) currencies are to global risk markets." said Bipan Rai, Executive Director and Senior Macro Strategist at CIBC Capital Markets.

On Friday, data from the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission and Reuters calculations showed that speculators raised bullish bets on the Canadian dollar for the fifth straight week.