By Commodity News Service Canada
Winnipeg, August 5 – The Canadian dollar was lower against its US counterpart at midday Tuesday, on softening commodity news and lukewarm global economic data.
Service industries in China grew at the slowest rate last month since November of 2005. The sluggish rate is due to a slowdown in the country’s property market, said an economist.
On the bright side, new data from the US showed positive gains in the US non-manufacturing sector and factory orders.
On the commodity markets, the December gold contact dropped $3.40 to US$1,285.50 an ounce. September copper fell three cents to US$3.21 a pound. The September crude oil contract fell US$0.82 cents to US$97.47 a barrel.
At 11:45 CDT Tuesday, the Canadian dollar was trading at US$0.9117 or US$1.0969, which compares with Friday’s North American close of US$0.9152, or US$=$1.0926.
At 11:45 CDT Tuesday, the Toronto Stock Exchange was down 17.97 points to sit at 15,197.29.
