“Canada Dollar Jumps Most in Four Months on Economic-Growth Signs”

The Canadian dollar had its biggest gain in almost four months against its US counterpart as crude oil, the country’s biggest export, rallied on stronger-than- forecast economic data from the US and the U.K. avoided a triple-dip recession with stronger than expected growth in the first quarter and crude oil saw its biggest two-day jump in nine months. “The pair had been resistant against better news in the stock market and the European bond market for a number of days, but now with the rallies in oil and gold today the Canadian dollar can no longer overlook the obvious good news in risk assets.” The loonie, as the Canadian dollar is known for the image of the waterfowl on the C$1 coin, rose 0.5 percent against its US counterpart to C$1.0208 per US dollar at 3:20 p.m. Implied volatility for three-month option on the US dollar versus the Canadian currency reached 6.04, its lowest level in a week.

Futures of crude oil rose 1.9 percent to $93.20 per barrel in New York, reaching their highest level since April 12, for their biggest two-day jump since Aug. “But overall, the story is really outside of Canada, it’s just that other currencies are moving faster and so euro moving lower has put a little bit of downside pressure on the other currencies and we’re seeing CAD really as a mid-performer.” Gross domestic product in Britain rose 0.3 percent in the first quarter, the Office for National Statistics said today in London. From a year earlier, GDP rose 0.6 percent, the most since the fourth quarter of 2011. The Canadian dollar has fallen 0.9 percent the past six months against nine developed nation currencies tracked by the Bloomberg Correlation-Weighted Index. The Australian dollar has increased 1.3 percent while the US dollar has gained 2 percent.