Canadian dollar and business outlook

By Commodity News Service Canada

WINNIPEG, May 13 – The Canadian dollar weakened against its US counterpart on Friday, as the US released favourable retail sale data, while Canadian data lagged.

US retail sales reached a one-year-high in April at 1.3 per cent, while Canadian retail sales reached a fresh low.

Canada’s retail sales were down 1.3 per cent in the fourth-quarter, which is the largest quarter-over-quarter decrease since the beginning of the series in 2008, according to Statistics Canada data.

At 8:43 a.m. CDT, the Canadian dollar was at US$0.7752 or C$1.2900 which compares with Thursday’s North American close of US$0.7792, or C$1.2834.

New York Mercantile crude oil futures had lost US$0.58 to sit at US$46.12 a barrel, as of 8:43 CDT, which further weighed on the commodity-linked Canadian dollar.

The TSX was stronger in early activity, up 13.86 points at 8:43
a.m. CDT to sit at 13,801.66.