By Commodity News Service Canada
Winnipeg, January 2 – The Canadian dollar was lower Friday morning, feeling the pinch of lower oil prices to start the year.
At 8:40 CST Friday morning, the loonie was down 0.0067 of a cent to US$0.8548 or US$1 = C$1.1699. A lack of domestic data left the loonie vulnerable to the influence of commodities and the firming American greenback.
The America dollar has been strengthened by the US Federal Reserve’s recent pullback of bond-buying and mortgage-back securities.
Crude prices have dropped 50 percent since June and analysts say that downward plunge will continue. New data from the Energy Information Administration revealed that inventories in the US are lower than expected at 385.5 million barrels.
On the commodity markets the February crude contract in New York fell $0.98 to US$52.29 a barrel. March copper was little changed at US$2.82 a pound while the February gold contract dipped 13.20 to US$1,170.90 an ounce.
At 8:40 CST Friday morning, the TSX was down 7.60 points to 14,632.44.
