The Canadian dollar edged higher against its U.S. counterpart on Friday as oil and stock prices rebounded, but the loonie was on track to end the week lower after multi-year peaks for Treasury yields contributed to market volatility.
The price of oil, one of Canada’s major exports, pared some of this week’s losses despite a report from the International Energy Agency that deemed supply adequate and the outlook for demand weakening.
U.S. crude prices were up 1.4 per cent at $71.94 a barrel.
Wall Street was set to rebound after the U.S. stock market’s worst two days of losses since February, helped by bumper results for the country’s largest bank, JPMorgan .
At 9:21 a.m. (1321 GMT), the Canadian dollar was trading 0.2 per cent higher at 1.3010 to the greenback, or 76.86 U.S. cents.
The currency, which on Thursday touched its weakest intraday level in nearly two weeks at 1.3077, traded in a range of 1.3003 to 1.3040.
For the week, the loonie was headed for a 0.5 per cent decline as investors worried that higher bond yields and trade conflicts could hurt global economic growth. On Tuesday, the International Monetary Fund cut its world gross domestic product forecasts for the first time in two years.
Canada runs a current account deficit so its economy could suffer if the flow of trade or capital slows.
Canadian home prices were unchanged in September from August as the number of areas across the country posting price gains declined, data showed on Friday.
While the monthly reading for the Teranet-National Bank Composite House Price Index was flat, the year-over-year increase picked up to 2.1 per cent, helped by a decline in September 2017.
Canadian government bond prices were little changed across the yield curve, with the 10-year rising 1 Canadian cent to yield 2.501 per cent.
The gap between Canada’s 10-year yield and its U.S. counterpart widened by 2.7 basis points to a spread of 65.7 basis points in favour of the U.S. bond.