Canadian dollar and business outlook

By Commodity News Service Canada

WINNIPEG, November 17 – The Canadian dollar strengthened against its US counterpart Tuesday morning, recovering from losses on Monday.

At 8:45 a.m. CST the Canadian dollar was at US$0.7512 or C$1.3312 which compares with Monday’s North American close of US$0.7505, or C$1.3325.

Despite lower crude oil futures and positive US economic data, the loonie gained some ground after falling to a six-week-low on Monday.

At 8:45 a.m. New York mercantile crude oil futures had lost US$0.33 to sit at US$41.41 a barrel.

In Canadian domestic data, after several consecutive years of negative gross operating balances, the federal government returned to a positive balance in 2013, Statistics Canada said in a report on Tuesday.

According to StatsCan, since 2009, the federal government’s revenues have steadily increased, rising 6.8 per cent in 2013. Much of the growth was attributable to higher tax revenue, which rose 5.9 per cent from 2012 to C$228 billion in 2013.

The TSX was weaker in early activity, down 37.78 points at 8:45 a.m. CST to sit at 13,279.74.