TORONTO: Canada's dollar fell from a seven-week peak against the US dollar on Thursday, weighed down by weaker global stocks and commodity prices and after moves by central banks globally to provide further monetary stimulus fell short of ramped-up expectations.
Against the euro, however, the Canadian currency rallied, touching C$1.2524, or 79.85 euro cents, its strongest level since mid-June 2010.
Canada followed moves in global markets where stocks fell on Thursday after the biggest three-day rally of the year as investors awaited clues on Federal Reserve stimulus and a jobs report likely to show Europe's crisis weighing on the US economy.
"I think most of the weakness has been a little bit of a correction in the asset markets," said Shane Enright, an executive director of foreign exchange sales at CIBC World Markets.
"You've got oil prices pulling back a little despite a bigger-than-expected drawdown," with similar moves in gold, commodities and US stocks, he said.
The Canadian currency ended the session at C$1.0144 against the US dollar, or 98.58 US cents, a tad weaker than Wednesday's North American session close at C$1.0132 versus the greenback, or 98.70 US cents.
Earlier, the currency breached the 200-day moving average at around C$1.0118 versus the US dollar, or 98.83 US cents, all the way to C$1.0100, or 99.01 US cents, its best level since May 16.
The European Central Bank cut interest rates to a record low to breathe life into a deteriorating euro zone economy but steered clear of more dramatic measures, such as buying government bonds or flooding banks with fresh liquidity, putting broad pressure on the struggling euro.
Riskier assets had benefited from a surprise interest rate cut by China and as the Bank of England launched a third round of monetary stimulus.
"I think all in all, the overall theme is that growth has been repriced lower in markets and central banks are reacting, and so I think typically that should be what leads us into a risk rally which would be positive" for the Canadian dollar, said Camilla Sutton, chief currency strategist at Scotiabank.
She cautioned, however, that "there's still tremendous uncertainty," particularly leading into US jobs data on Friday.
On Thursday data showed the pace of growth in the US economy's services sector slowed in June to its lowest level since January 2010 as new orders waned, though employment improved.
Meanwhile, the US private sector added more jobs than expected in June, heightening expectations for Friday's official employment report.
Better-than-expected jobs data on Friday could be a positive for risk assets, or negative if markets interpret it as reducing the likelihood the US Federal Reserve will take further steps to stimulate the economy.
Canadian bond prices were mostly lower across the curve, underperforming their US counterparts.
Canada's two-year government bond prices were unchanged to yield 1.028 percent, while the benchmark 10-year bond was off 7 Canadian cents to yield 1.718 percent.
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