C$ strengthens with oil as Fed minutes weigh on greenback

18 Aug, 2016

TORONTO: The commodity-linked Canadian dollar strengthened against its US counterpart on Thursday as oil rose and minutes from the Federal Reserve's July meeting weighed on the greenback.

US crude prices were up 1.11 percent at $47.31 a barrel as the world's biggest producer prepared to discuss a possible freeze in output levels. The US dollar fell against a basket of major currencies after Fed minutes, released on Wednesday, showed a bias among policymakers against raising interest rates soon.

At 9:13 a.m. EDT (1313 GMT), the Canadian dollar was trading at C$1.2829 to the greenback, or 77.95 US cents, stronger than Wednesday's close of C$1.2856, or 77.78 US cents.

The currency's weakest level in the session was C$1.2857 and its strongest was C$1.2798, which matched Tuesday's seven-week high.

Foreign investors bought a net C$9.02 billion ($7.03 billion) in Canadian securities in June, mainly in stocks, after buying C$13.99 billion in securities in May, Statistics Canada said.

Canadian government bond prices were mixed across the maturity curve, with the two-year price down 0.5 Canadian cent to yield 0.575 percent and the benchmark 10-year rising 2 Canadian cents to yield 1.052 percent.

The curve flattened as the spread between the 2-year and 10-year yields narrowed by 0.5 of a basis point to 47.7 basis points, its narrowest since June 2008.

Copyright Reuters, 2016

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