By Commodity News Service Canada
Winnipeg, January 9 – The Canadian dollar was nearly unchanged compared to its US counterpart at midday Wednesday, as a lack of fresh news had some traders on the sidelines, analysts said.
At 11:55 CST Wednesday, the Canadian dollar was trading at US$1.0134, or US$1=C$0.9868, which compares with Tuesday’s North American close of US$1.0135, or US$=C$0.9867.
Traders were wary of pushing the market too far one way or the other ahead of Thursday’s European and British Central Banks policy meetings.
The Canadian currency found some support from better than anticipated Canadian housing starts data. Canadian housing starts were down 1.7% to a seasonally adjusted rate of 197,976 in December, beating expectations of 195,000 starts.
Declining crude oil and gold prices put some downward pressure on the Canadian dollar.
The Toronto Stock Exchange was up 2.07 points, or 0.017%, at 11:55 CST Wednesday, to sit at 12,506.88.
