Canadian dollar and business outlook

By Commodity News Service Canada

WINNIPEG, November 20 The Canadian dollar held steady against its US counterpart on Friday as Statistics Canada released mixed data.

At 8:40 a.m. CST the Canadian dollar was at US$0.7520 or C$1.3297 which was unchanged from Thursday’s North American close.

At 8:40 a.m. New York mercantile crude oil futures had lost US$0.44 to sit at US$40.10 a barrel.

In Canadian domestic data, the consumer price index rose one per cent in the 12 months to October, matching the increase in September, Statistics Canada said in a report on Friday.

In other Canadian domestic data, following four months of gains, retail sales fell 0.5 per cent in September to C$43.3 billion. Sales were down in 8 of 11 subsectors, representing 60 per cent of retail trade.

The TSX was stronger in early activity, up 23.07 points at 8:40 a.m. CST to sit at 13,496.90.