BLBG: Canada's Dollar Advances as Gain in Crude Oil, Stocks Supports Risk Demand
Canada’s dollar rose for the first time in three days against its U.S. counterpart as crude oil, the nation’s biggest export, and equity futures gained, encouraging demand for higher-yielding assets.
The loonie, as the currency is known for the image of the aquatic bird on the C$1 coin, advanced against most of its major counterparts including the yen after a report showed foreigners bought a record amount of Canadian securities last year.
“Markets are generally stabilizing, equities are expected to open up, and that helps the Canadian dollar,” said Firas Askari, head currency trader at Bank of Montreal in Toronto. “We’ve been doing well on the crosses,” said Askari, referring to currencies pairs not involving the greenback.
Canada’s dollar appreciated 0.3 percent to 98.69 cents per U.S. dollar at 8:48 a.m. in Toronto, from 98.98 yesterday. One Canadian dollar buys $1.0133.
Futures on the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index added 0.3 percent, while crude oil for March delivery gained 0.5 percent to $84.75 a barrel in New York trading.
Foreigners bought a net C$9.63 billion ($9.76 billion) of Canadian securities in December, bringing last year’s total to a record C$116.2 billion, Statistics Canada said today. They bought C$3.1 billion of bonds in December, helping set a yearly record of C$95.7 billion in that category.
Stock Purchases
Non-residents bought C$4 billion of stocks in December and C$2.6 billion of money-market paper. Economists predicted a C$9 billion net purchase of Canadian securities for December, according to the median forecast of five estimates in a Bloomberg News survey.
Canadian factory sales rose in December less than economists predicted as a decline in aerospace products curbed gains in energy and metals.
Sales increased 0.4 percent to C$45.4 billion ($46 billion), Statistics Canada said. Economists in a Bloomberg News survey predicted a 3 percent increase, based on the median of 18 estimates.
To contact the reporter for this story: Catarina Saraiva in New York at asaraiva5@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Dave Liedtka at dliedtka@bloomberg.net
