By Commodity News Service Canada
Winnipeg, January 29 – The Canadian dollar was lower against its American counterpart at midday Thursday, as oil prices began to approach the US$40 a barrel mark.
The loonie was at US$0.7904 or US$1 = C$1.1652 at 11:50 CST Thursday morning.
A new report indicated inventories of US crude were at 407 million barrels with fresh builds occurring at plants in Oklahoma.
CIBC is predicting that the Bank of Canada will cut interest rates again in a bid to contain the loonie’s slide. It also doesn’t expect the loonie to rebound from its current downward direction until later this year.
On the commodity markets the March crude contract in New York is down US$0.59 at US$43.86 a barrel. The February gold contract fell US$31.60 to US$1,255.60 an ounce.
At 11:50 CST Thursday morning, the Toronto Stock Exchange was down 28.11 points to 14,574.77.
