The Canadian dollar traded near its lowest level in almost three weeks against its U.S

The Canadian dollar traded near its lowest level in almost three weeks against its U.S. counterpart as a report showing slower inflation overshadowed another, and said that retail sales rose more than expected.

Canadian currency, nicknamed the Canadian dollar fell against 11 of his 16 fellow seniors. It pared losses as stocks and crude oil, the main export of the country, rose. The consumer price index rose less than economists expected, bolstering bets that the central bank kept interest rates on hold.

"The CPI figure was not enough to change the perception that the Bank of Canada, and the number of retail, which could have caused a little more the strong Canadian dollar, actually had a bit of a soft tone "said David Watt, senior currency strategist at RBC Royal Bank of Canada Capital unit in Toronto. "We are weaker than yesterday's close, but it's pretty tight around that level of closure."

Canadian dollar depreciated by less than 0.1 percent to C $ 1.0171 per U.S. dollar at 5 pm in Toronto, compared with C $ 1.0168 yesterday, when it reached C $ 1.0209, the lowest since Dec. 1. Today withdrew as much as 0.4 percent to C $ 1.0207. One Canadian dollar buys 98.31 U.S. cents.

Consumer prices rose 2 percent in November from a year earlier after rising 2.4 percent in October, Statistics Canada said today in Ottawa.
'Slump'

"We are seeing signs that Canada had its own plot soft end of the third quarter to early in the fourth quarter," said Watt of RBC in a telephone interview. "We're seeing a reversal of the upward trend through the turn of the year, so it could be weighing on the currency."

Retail sales rose 0.8 percent to a seasonally adjusted C 36.6 billion U.S. dollars (35.9 billion), another report showed statistics agency. Economists expected a 0.5 percent increase, according to the median of 21 estimates.

"The data are offset somewhat today," said Michael Leavitt, an institutional agent derived based in Montreal, Canada, of MF Global Co., via e-mail. "Neither is showing a particular trend."

The yield on the June 2011 contract bankers' acceptances, an indicator of the confidence of the cost of short-term loans, fell three basis points, or 0.03 percentage point to 1.53 percent, indicating traders are reducing bets on future interest rate increases. The yield was 1.58 percent at the end of last week and 1.70 percent on Nov. 29.

The interest-rate bets

Bax called contracts averaged 20 basis points above the target overnight central bank. Hedge funds and money managers use contracts to hedge against changes in interest rates and betting.

"There's no rush for the bank to move in the short term," said Shaun Osborne, currency strategist at TD Toronto-Dominion Bank Securities Unit by telephone from Toronto. "Maybe I should undermine the Canadian dollar a little."

The Bank of Canada, which meets next on Jan. 18, left its target interest rate by 1 per cent on 7 December for the second time directly to measure the global economic recovery after three increases. U.S. Federal Reserve has kept its benchmark rate in a range from zero to 0.25 percent since December 2008.

funding rate Canada's central bank will remain stable until the end of March 2011 and then rise to 1.25 percent on June 30 and 1.5 percent in late September.

Approached parity

Canada's currency, called the Canadian dollar for the image of waterfowl in the C $ 1 coin, thanks to C $ 1.0001 on 15 December, the strongest level since trading on a one for one with the dollar U.S. in November 1911. It was within a cent of parity every day from December 2 through December 17.

"We had a narrow technical breakdown we've been negotiating in recent weeks between the pair on the downside and C $ 1.0140 at the top," said Osborne of TD. "In reality suggests it should be operated to the maximum that we had in late November, so that around C $ 1.0275."

Government bonds rose, pushing the yield on the 10 years for up to three basis points to 3.13 percent. Touched 3.125 percent yesterday, the lowest since Dec. 6. The price of the 3.5 percent security maturing in June 2020 rose 17 cents to C $ 102.91. Canadian government bonds have lost 0.2 percent this month, trimming its gains for the year to 5.9 percent, according to the rate of Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

Crude oil for February delivery rose 1.3 percent to $ 89.99 a barrel in New York. 500 of Standard & Poor's rose 0.6 percent.

Toronto-Dominion Bank agreed to buy Chrysler Financial Corp. to Cerberus Capital Management LP for $ 6.3 billion in cash, adding a self-financing company in the U.S. acquisition second by a Canadian bank. Is behind the $ 8,330,000,000 of TD according to Commerce Bancorp Inc. in 2008.