Canadian dollar and business outlook

By Commodity News Service Canada

WINNIPEG, November 30 The Canadian dollar strengthened against its US counterpart on Monday as crude oil futures propped up the commodity-linked currency.

At 8:40 a.m. CST the Canadian dollar was at US$0.7488 or C$1.3355 which compares with Friday’s North American close of US$0.7478, or C$1.3372.

At 8:40 a.m. New York mercantile crude oil futures had gained US$0.63 to sit at US$42.34 a barrel, as markets positioned themselves ahead of a Friday OPEC meeting, despite market talk that the group will leave output unchanged.

In Canadian domestic data, Canada’s current account deficit (on a seasonally adjusted basis) narrowed C$0.4 billion in the third quarter to C$16.2 billion. A lower deficit on trade in goods was partially offset by a higher deficit on cross-border investment income flows, Statistics Canada said in a report on Monday.

The TSX was stronger in early activity, up 41.14 points at 8:40 a.m. CST to sit at 13,409.38.