Canada’s Dollar Depreciates as U.S. Stock Futures, Oil Decline

By Chris Fournier

May 21 (Bloomberg) -- Canada’s dollar weakened for the first day in four, falling from a seven-month high, as U.S. stock-index futures declined and commodities such as copper and crude oil dropped.

“The Canadian dollar’s rally is built on shaky foundations,” Tom Levinson, a currency strategist in London at ING Bank NV, wrote today in a note to clients. Speculation that the global economy will recover quickly “is at best premature and at worst misguided.”

The Canadian currency depreciated 0.3 percent to C$1.1455 per U.S. dollar at 8:04 a.m. in Toronto, from C$1.1418 yesterday. One Canadian dollar buys 87.30 U.S. cents. The loonie, as Canada’s currency is known, strengthened earlier to C$1.1349, the highest in more than seven months.

Futures on the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index slipped 0.6 percent. Crude oil for July delivery dropped as much as 2.5 percent to $60.51 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, and copper fell in London for the first time in six days. Raw materials account for more than half of Canada’s export revenue.

To contact the reporter on this story: Chris Fournier in Montreal at cfournier3@bloomberg.net