By Commodity News Service Canada
Winnipeg, April 17 – The Canadian dollar was higher against its American counterpart Friday morning, as a new report indicated Canada’s inflation rate was higher than expected in the month of March.
At 8:45 CDT Friday morning, the loonie was up 0.0036 of a cent to US$0.8236 or US$1 = C$1.2219. According to the report, Canada’s national inflation rate was 1.2 percent in March while core inflation was 2.2 percent. Both of those figures were higher than expected. Excluding gasoline, Statistics Canada’s consumer price index was up 2.2 per cent compared with a year ago, matching the increase in February. Prices are also higher for food.
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General merchandise stores in Canada reported better sales in March by as much as 5.6 percent.
On the commodity markets the May crude contract in New York fell US$0.44 to US$56.27 a barrel. The April gold contract rose $4.40 to US$1,202.40 an ounce.
At 8:45 CDT Friday morning, the TSX was down 109.02 points to 15,277.75.
