Canadian dollar and business outlook

By Commodity News Service Canada

WINNIPEG, February 5 The Canadian dollar weakened against its US counterpart on Friday, as crude oil futures moved lower, and Canada’s unemployment rate moved up.

At 8:35 a.m. CST the Canadian dollar was at US$0.7251 or C$1.3791 which compares with Thursday’s North American close of US$0.7275, or C$1.3745.

In Canadian domestic data, employment was virtually unchanged in January at a reduction of 5,700 and the unemployment rate edged up to 7.2 per cent, Statistics Canada said in a report on Friday.

The TSX was weaker in early activity, down 71.48 points at 8:35 a.m. CST to sit at 12,703.02.