By Commodity News Service Canada
WINNIPEG, November 30 The Canadian dollar strengthened against its US counterpart on Monday as crude oil futures propped up the commodity-linked currency.
At 8:40 a.m. CST the Canadian dollar was at US$0.7488 or C$1.3355 which compares with Friday’s North American close of US$0.7478, or C$1.3372.
At 8:40 a.m. New York mercantile crude oil futures had gained US$0.63 to sit at US$42.34 a barrel, as markets positioned themselves ahead of a Friday OPEC meeting, despite market talk that the group will leave output unchanged.
In Canadian domestic data, Canada’s current account deficit (on a seasonally adjusted basis) narrowed C$0.4 billion in the third quarter to C$16.2 billion. A lower deficit on trade in goods was partially offset by a higher deficit on cross-border investment income flows, Statistics Canada said in a report on Monday.
The TSX was stronger in early activity, up 41.14 points at 8:40 a.m. CST to sit at 13,409.38.
