Canadian dollar and business outlook

By Commodity News Service Canada

WINNIPEG, October 14 – The Canadian dollar strengthened against
its US counterpart Wednesday as disappointing US data pressured the
greenback.

At 9:00 a.m. CDT the Canadian dollar was at US$0.7696 or C$1.2994
which compares with Tuesday’s North American close of US$0.7681, or
C$1.3019.

US retail sales increased by 0.1 per cent in September, which
fell short of analyst expectations of 0.2 per cent. The country’s
producer price index fell 0.5 per cent, which disappointingly
outpaced forecasts for a 0.2 per cent decrease.

In Canadian domestic data, Canadian refineries received 8.8
million cubic metres of crude oil in July, up 0.3 per cent compared
with the same month in 2014. Refinery receipts of domestic crude oil
totaled 5.8 million cubic metres in July, down 3.3 per cent from the
same month a year earlier, Statistics Canada said in a report on
Wednesday.

According to StatsCan, crude oil imports increased 8.2 per cent
from July 2014 to three million cubic metres in July. Imports
represented 34.2 per cent of total crude oil received at refineries
in Canada.

The TSX was stronger in early activity, up 95.43 points at 9:00
a.m. CDT to sit at 13,940.43.