By Chris Fournier Oct. 16 (Bloomberg) -- Canada’s dollar fell, moving away from parity with the greenback, as a drop in U.S. stock-index futures and Bank of America Corp.’s third-quarter loss reduced demand for currencies of commodity producers. “The Canadian dollar is down on the Bank of America report and equities turning around,’’ said Firas Askari, head currency trader in Toronto at BMO Capital Markets, a unit of Canada’s fourth-largest lender. The Canadian currency slid 0.6 percent to C$1.0396 per U.S. dollar at 7:30 a.m. in Toronto, from C$1.0338 yesterday. One Canadian dollar buys 96.19 U.S. cents. The currency touched C$1.0207 yesterday, the strongest level since July 2008. Canada’s dollar also weakened as Statistics Canada said the consumer price index fell 0.9 percent last month from a year ago after a 0.8 percent decrease in August. The drop matched the median forecast in a Bloomberg survey of 22 economists. Standard & Poor’s 500 Index futures dropped 0.4 percent after earlier gaining 0.5 percent as Bank of America Corp. reported a third-quarter loss of $1 billion, or 26 cents per diluted share, compared with a profit of $1.18 billion, or 15 cents, a year earlier. The loonie, as the currency is known, was the third-best performer against the greenback this month among the 16 most- traded currencies tracked by Bloomberg, trailing the Australian dollar and Brazil’s real. Like Canada, Australia and Brazil export commodities. The Bank of Canada left the overnight rate at 0.25 percent at the last meeting in September and reiterated a pledge to keep it there through June 2010 unless the inflation outlook changes. All 16 economists in a Bloomberg survey forecast the target rate will hold steady after next week’s meeting. The rate was 4.5 percent when the central bank began cutting it in December 2007. The Canadian currency and the U.S. dollar last traded on a one-for-one basis in July 2008. To contact the reporter on this story: Chris Fournier in Montreal at cfournier3@bloomberg.net

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