Canadian dollar and business outlook

By Commodity News Service Canada

WINNIPEG, November 2 The Canadian dollar weakened against its US counterpart Monday morning as crude oil futures dropped.

At 8:35 a.m. CST the Canadian dollar was at US$0.7636 or C$1.3096 which compares with Friday’s North American close of US$0.7648, or C$1.3075.

At 8:35 a.m. New York mercantile futures had lost US$0.61 to sit at US$45.98 a barrel.

Crude oil futures were pressured by weaker Chinese manufacturing data, and concerns about demand from the country.

In Canadian economic data, the manufacturing sector consumed 2,177 petajoules as part of the production process in 2014, up 1.7 per cent from 2013, Statistics Canada said in a report on Monday.

According to StatsCan, the total energy consumed by manufacturing establishments has risen by about 5 per cent since 2009. Over this same period, real manufacturing sales increased by 15 per cent.

The TSX was stronger in early activity, up 8.58 points at 8:35 a.m. CST to sit at 13,537.75.