TORONTO \u2014 The Canadian dollar strengthened to a near \u200ctwo-week high against its U.S. counterpart on Wednesday as a ceasefire agreement between the U.S. and Iran lifted investor sentiment.<\/p>\n
Wall Street\u2019s main indexes climbed to near one-month \u200bhighs and the price of oil tumbled 16 per cent to US$94.85 a \u200bbarrel, as expectations rose that energy supplies through the Strait \u2060of Hormuz could resume.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Canadian dollar is climbing on an improvement \u200bin risk appetite and borrowing costs, reflecting the fact that its long-standing \u200brole as a petrocurrency has eroded markedly in recent years,\u201d Karl Schamotta, chief market strategist at Corpay, said in a note.<\/p>\n
\u201cProspects for renewed capital expenditure in the (Canadian) energy \u200bsector remain dim,\u201d Schamotta said.<\/p>\n
The loonie was trading 0.3 per cent higher at \u200b1.3850 per U.S. dollar, or 72.20 U.S. cents, after touching its strongest intraday level \u200csince \u2060March 26 at 1.3825, while the U.S. dollar fell sharply against a basket of major currencies.<\/p>\n
Safe-haven demand had helped support the greenback in recent weeks.<\/p>\n
The pullback in oil prices led to reduced bets for tighter monetary policy \u200bfrom the Bank \u200bof Canada. The \u2060market was pricing in roughly one rate hike this year compared to the two it expected in recent \u200bdays.<\/p>\n
Canada\u2019s employment report for March, due on Friday, could \u200boffer \u2060additional clues on the monetary policy outlook. Economists expect a jobs gain of 15,000 after the economy shed 84,000 jobs in February.<\/p>\n
Canadian bond yields moved \u2060lower \u200bacross the curve, tracking moves in U.S. Treasuries. \u200bThe 10-year was down 6.5 basis points at 3.422 per cent, after earlier touching its lowest level \u200bsince March 18 at 3.385 per cent.<\/p>\n
Reporting by Fergal Smith; Editing by Aurora Ellis<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TORONTO \u2014 The Canadian dollar strengthened to a near \u200ctwo-week high against its U.S. counterpart on Wednesday as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":590777,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[712,49,48,44],"class_list":{"0":"post-590776","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-canada","8":"tag-apple-news","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590776","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=590776"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590776\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/590777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=590776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=590776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=590776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}