Oil Price Rebound Brings Canadian Dollar Back to Life

Breaking its losing streak for the first time this year, the Canadian dollar has now rebounded after a rough six months and six straight days of decline, thanks to higher oil prices.

The Canadian dollar was up 0.9 percent this morning in Toronto, trading at C$1.2845 per U.S. dollar, following six days on the downward spiral. The Canadian dollar was up 0.47 U.S. cents from the Thursday close.

On the close Thursday, the Canadian dollar was at 77.15 U.S. cents, reaching 77.62 U.S. cents today.

At the same time, August crude contracts advanced $1.38 to $48.12 per barrel.

“Everything is going the Canadian dollar’s way: better risk appetite or certainly less risk aversion, higher oil prices and narrower spreads,” Shaun Osborne, chief foreign-exchange strategist at Bank of Nova Scotia in Toronto, told Bloomberg.

“It suggests the Canadian dollar is going to stay on a slightly better footing, but I don’t think we’re going to see a big push up at this stage.”

Bloomberg also quoted Bank of Montreal BMO Capital Markets Corp. foreign exchange strategy head Greg Anderson as attributing the Loonie’s rebound to commodity prices, and particularly higher oil prices.

Looking ahead, Bloomberg has predicted that the Canadian dollar will weaken to C$1.30 by the end of the year, while Anderson forecast that if the United Kingdom votes to leave the European Union, the Canadian dollar might reach up to C$1.33 or C$1.34 per U.S. dollar.

For May, Canada's annual inflation slowed to 1.5 percent from a rate of 1.7 percent in April, with prices for gasoline and food accounting for most of the change, Reuters quoted Statistics Canada as saying.

By James Burgess of Oilprice.com

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