By Matt Townsend Oct. 21 (Bloomberg) -- Canada’s currency fell for a second day as declines in global stocks and crude oil, the nation’s largest export, dulled investors’ appetite for riskier assets. The Canadian dollar fell yesterday the most in four months after the Bank of Canada amplified its warning that the currency’s strength is slowing an economic recovery, boosting speculation interest rates will remain unchanged longer than expected. It weakened today against most of its counterparts. The currency, nicknamed the loonie, depreciated 0.5 percent to C$1.0548 per U.S. dollar at 8:34 a.m. in Toronto. It closed at C$1.0494 yesterday, when it fell as much as 2.3 percent, the most since June. One Canadian dollar buys 94.80 U.S. cents. The central bank’s comments “plus torpedoing early rate hike expectations are liable to keep the Canadian dollar on the defensive in the short run, but we tend to think that Canadian dollar losses are liable to be limited overall,” analysts led by Shaun Osborne, chief currency strategist in Toronto at TD Securities Inc., wrote in a note today. The loonie’s decline over the past two days came after a three-week rally pushed the currency toward parity with its U.S. counterpart. The Canadian and U.S. dollars last traded on a one- for-one basis on July 22, 2008. Futures on the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index expiring in December slipped 0.4 percent. Europe’s Dow Jones Stoxx 600 Index retreated 0.7 percent. Crude oil for December delivery fell as much as 1.8 percent to $77.64 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

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