By Claire Sibonney TORONTO (Reuters) - The Canadian dollar firmed against the greenback on Tuesday morning, extending its new year run above parity as rallying commodities and world equities boosted appetite for the risk-related currency. Prices of oil, copper and gold were higher on the day, while overseas stock markets were buoyed by earnings season optimism and North American futures pointed higher. Year-to-date, the Canadian dollar is the top performing G10 currency, and is also supported by heightened expectations that the Bank of Canada will resume its tightening campaign in the first half of the year. "Canada is finding bids as a North American play," said Jack Spitz, managing director of foreign exchange at National Bank Financial. "Central banks like it as a diversity for reserves, $90 crude, rising trendline on the CRB (Thomson Reuters/Jefferies commodity price index) is supportive, steady economics and the pricing of three hikes by the Bank of Canada over the next year." At 8:20 a.m. (1320 GMT), the Canadian dollar was at C$0.9925 to the U.S. dollar, or $1.0076, up from Monday's finish at C$0.9932 to the U.S. dollar, or $1.0068, and trading above parity for the eleventh straight session. Earlier, the currency touched as high as C$0.9900, or $1.01, close to last week's key U.S. dollar trough at C$0.9889, or $1.011. "The technical bias is bearish for dollar/Canada," added Spitz. He said breaking the U.S. dollar's January 3 low would open up a new technical cluster of bids last seen in May 2008. However, strong Canadian corporate interest in buying the U.S. currency around those levels would offer fair support for the greenback. With riskier assets in play, Canadian bond prices gave up earlier gains. The two-year bond was flat to yield 1.711 percent, while the 10-year bond lost 5 Canadian cents to yield 3.183 percent. (Reporting by Claire Sibonney, Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

Source