By Commodity News Service Canada
Winnipeg, June 15 – The Canadian dollar was little changed against its US counterpart at midday Monday, as advances in gold helped offset lukewarm oil prices and political instability in Greece.
The loonie was at US$0.8126 or US$1 = C$1.2306 at 11:55 CDT Monday morning. Crude oil prices were down 1.4% to start the day.
New numbers show that seasonally adjusted factory shipments in Canada fell in April by 2.1%. That is significantly worse than the 0.5% decline expected by analysts.
Germany’s EU commissioner is warning major economic entities in Europe to prepare for a state of emergency after talks aimed at preventing a Greek default and possible exit from the EU had broken down. Greece has just two weeks left to find a way out of the crisis.
On the commodity markets the July crude contract in New York fell US$0.39 to US$60.01 a barrel. The August gold contract rose US$8.40 to US$1,187.50 an ounce.
At 11:55 CDT Monday morning, the Toronto Stock Exchange was up 9.64 points to 14,750.79.
