By Commodity News Service Canada
Winnipeg, July 2 The Canadian dollar rose to a 2014 high relative to its U.S counterpart on Wednesday morning, despite a soft reading on April’s economic growth earlier in the week, analysts say.
At 8:51 CDT Wednesday morning, the loonie rose to US$0.9398 or US$1 = C$1.0676, up 0.26 cents US from Monday’s close. This was the highest the loonie has been since hitting US$0.9412 cents in December. Canadian markets were closed Tuesday for Canada Day.
April gross domestic products on Monday grew only 0.1 per cent, which was half of what was expected, according to Statistics Canada.
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Oil prices have been increasing due to rising tensions and political unrest in the Middle East. Higher than expected inflation data has brought up ideas that the Bank of Canada might hike the interest rates sooner than expected, analysts say.
Strong manufacturing data from China and the U.S. gave support to the Canadian currency, traders say.
This week traders will be looking ahead to the release of the U.S. government’s June employment report later this week. Canadian employment data will be released on July 11.
On the commodity markets, August crude oil was down to US$104.89 a barrel, while July copper gained three cents to US$3.22 a pound. August gold bullion was down 50 cents to US$1,326.10 an ounce.
The TSX was up 27.80 points to sit at 15, 173.81 at 8:51 CDT Wednesday morning.