Canadian dollar and business outlook

By Commodity News Service Canada

WINNIPEG, October 21 – The Canadian dollar weakened against its
US counterpart Wednesday as crude oil prices fell, and ahead of a
central bank meeting.

At 9:05 a.m. CDT the Canadian dollar was at US$0.7656 or C$1.3062
which compares with Tuesday’s North American close of US$0.7703, or
C$1.2982.

Crude oil futures were down in early activity, which reflected
poorly on the commodity-linked Canadian dollar. At 9:05 a.m., the
December contract had lost 93 US cents to sit at US$45.36 a barrel.

The Canadian central bank is not expected to make any interest
rate changes at its latest policy announcement, but the Canadian
dollar stayed in a tight range regardless.

In Canadian domestic data, investment in new housing
construction edged up 0.4 per cent from August 2014 to C$4.4 billion
in August, Statistics Canada said in a report on Wednesday.

The TSX was weaker in early activity, down 42.47 points at 9:05
a.m. CDT to sit at 13,799.45.