Loonie falls to 72.72 cents as oil, stock markets edge down

First Quantum Minerals Ltd. vapored 11.49 percent to 3.93 Canadian dollars over the falling copper prices and Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan Inc., the world’s biggest potash fertilizer producer, declined 3.44 percent to 23.02 Canadian dollars.

Gareth Watson, director of the Investment Management Group at Richardson GMP, said the recovery was due in part to the massive sell-off in commodities and equities over the past week and a half. “I don’t think you can read too much into one day with a bit of a reversal here”.

“Nothing massively changed overnight, but people might be sniffing around for a bargain”.

The Dow Jones average of 30 stocks was up 11.76 points at 17,276.97, the broader S&P 500 index rose 3.36 points to 2,015.73 and the Nasdaq gained 6.35 points to 4,939.82. At this point in time, the Bank of Canada has a lot of issues to deal with, and they most certainly will not be raising interest rates while the Federal Reserve is expected to this week. The Fed sets the interest rate on this overnight lending, and that rate is used as a benchmark for the interest rates on everything from credits cards to mortgages. We are in a situation where there is an excess of 2 million unused barrels of oil being shipped into the marketplace every day.

The February gold contract fell $12.30 to settle at US$1,063.40 per troy ounce and the January contract for natural gas fell 9.6 cents to US$1.894 per 1,000 cubic feet.

The Canadian dollar, also known as the loonie, this year has dropped to its lowest level against the USA dollar in more than a decade.