2013.06.1205:50:55UTC+00Canadian Dollar bolster versus commodity counterparts as outlooks diverge

The Canadian dollar bolster to its highest level in almost three years against its Australian counterpart as traders speculated the North American economy will lead global growth.

Canada’s currency fluctuated versus the U.S. dollar as oil declined as much as 1.8 percent before a report forecast to show stockpiles fell last week in the U.S., the biggest customer of Canadian crude. Canada displayed its largest jobs gain in a decade and the fastest pace of new home construction in 13-months in May, while stronger U.S. data has sent bond yields higher. The loonie advanced versus the Aussie after Australia home-loan approvals grew at the slowest pace in three months.

Oil, Stocks

Crude-oil fell 0.9 percent to $94.87 a barrel in New York and the Standard & Poor’s GSCI index of 24 commodities dropped 0.5 percent. The S&P 500 Index of stocks declined 1 percent.

Employment, Housing

“Things in North America are a little bit better than elsewhere,” Greg T. Moore, a currency strategist at Toronto-Dominion Bank, said by phone from Toronto. “A stronger economic recovery taking hold in the U.S. is good for the Canadian economy,”

Canadian employment rose by 95,000 last month, the most since August 2002, and the jobless rate fell to 7.1 percent from 7.2 percent even as more people joined the workforce, Statistics Canada said in Ottawa on June 7. The same day, the U.S. reported a high-than-forecast gain of 175,000 jobs.

Housing starts in Canada rose to 200,178 units at a seasonally adjusted annual pace in May, up 13.8 percent from April and the highest level since November.

The loonie climbed on June 6 most in more than a year after Bank of Canada Governor Stephen Poloz, in his first public comments, reiterated his predecessor Mark Carney’s view that rates will rise as the economy grows. Poloz will probably maintain a 1 percent interest rate for at least the rest of the year.

Canada’s currency has gained 1.2 percent in the past three months against nine developed nation currencies tracked by the Bloomberg Correlation-Weighted Index. The greenback added 0.5 percent. The Aussie dollar led decliners, dropping 9.1 percent, followed by the New Zealand dollar’s 4.9 percent drop.