By Commodity News Service Canada
Winnipeg, February 20 – The Canadian dollar was lower against its American counterpart Friday morning, after a report indicated retail sales in Canada slumped by two percent in December. That was much larger than the 0.4 percent drop analysts had predicted.
At 8:50 CST Friday morning, the loonie was down 0.0052 of a cent to US$0.7979 or US$1 = C$1.2532. New car dealerships were some of the hardest hit retailers while food and beverage stores actually witnessed a small increase.
Investors are now focused on the situation in Greece, where time is running out to find a deal between the country and its creditors. Its deal with the 19-nation Eurozone is set to expire at the end of the month.
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Brent crude oil rose towards US$61 a barrel Friday as speculation grew that the rig count numbers in the US would soon be on the decline.
On the commodity markets the April crude contract in New York rose US$0.24 to US$52.07 a barrel. March copper declined four cents to US$2.58 a pound while the April gold contract jumped $4.70 to US$1,212.30 an ounce.
At 8:50 CST Friday morning, the TSX was up 38.66 points to 15,218.99.
