BLBG: Canada’s Dollar Trades Near Six-Week High as Gold Sets Record
By Chris Fournier
Dec. 2 (Bloomberg) -- Canada’s currency traded near the highest level in six weeks versus its U.S. counterpart after gold surged to a record.
“Everybody is watching gold hit new highs,” said Camilla Sutton, a currency strategist in Toronto at Bank of Nova Scotia, the nation’s third-largest lender. “The Canadian dollar is stuck in its range.”
The Canadian dollar was little changed at C$1.0461 per U.S. dollar at 8:31 a.m. in Toronto, compared with C$1.0462 yesterday, when it touched C$1.0406, the strongest level since Oct. 21. One Canadian dollar buys 95.60 U.S. cents.
Gold for immediate delivery gained as much as 1.7 percent to $1,217.23 an ounce in London, the most ever. Silver, platinum and palladium also advanced.
“We continue to believe we will see ongoing Canadian dollar strength,” although that will require “significantly higher” oil prices or a “significantly lower” U.S. dollar, said Sutton.
The Dollar Index, which IntercontinentalExchange Inc. uses to track the greenback against the currencies of six major U.S. trading partners, fell 0.7 percent to 74.365 yesterday, before trading little changed today.
Crude oil for January delivery declined as much as 1.1 percent today to $77.55 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
To contact the reporter on this story: Chris Fournier in Montreal at cfournier3@bloomberg.net
