By Commodity News Service Canada
Winnipeg, January 8 – The Canadian dollar was slightly lower against its American counterpart Thursday morning, as investors waited to see the latest job data from the US and Canada.
At 8:45 CST Thursday morning, the loonie was down 0.0006 of a cent to US$0.8444 or US$1 = C$1.1843. Oil prices have dropped 34 percent since late November but were firmer today. Analysts have largely given up trying to predict how low oil values will go.
The US Energy Information Administration showed that inventories of crude oil in the US declined by 3.1 million barrels last week. Industry watchers had expected values to increase slightly.
On Friday the US will release its employment report for December. Experts predict a total of 240,000 jobs were created during that timeframe.
On the commodity markets the February crude contract in New York lifted $0.30 to US$48.95 a barrel. March copper was up two cents at US$2.78 a pound while the February gold contract dropped 2.20 to US$1,208.50 an ounce.
At 8:45 CST Thursday morning, the TSX was up 140.74 points to 14,425.74.
