Loonie advances as rising energy prices send March inflation higher

TORONTO – The Canadian dollar was higher Thursday amid data showing inflation coming in slightly higher than expected.

The loonie was up 0.24 of a cent to 91 cents US as Statistics Canada reported that the consumer price index rose 0.6 per cent in March from the previous month, higher than the 0.4 per cent reading that economists had expected. The rise was mostly due to a three per cent increase in gasoline from February.

Excluding volatile items such as food and energy, the core rate of inflation rose 0.3 per cent, which was in line with expectations.

Year over year, the consumer price index was up 1.5 per cent, up from 1.1 per cent in February.

“Looking ahead, gasoline and natural gas prices are likely to put further pressure on the headline rate in April, but it will be a somewhat slower climb to get core prices to two per cent,” said Avery Shenfeld, chief economist at CIBC World Markets.

The dollar had slid 1/3 of a cent Wednesday in the wake of the Bank of Canada’s announcement that it was leaving its key rate at one per cent, where it’s been since September 2010. The bank also lowered its forecast for first quarter growth this year to 1.5 per cent, from 2.5 per cent, but attributed the downgrade mostly to temporary impacts of a unusually severe winter.

But the loonie rebounded as the “higher than expected Canadian inflation has shifted expectations back toward a firmly neutral from the neutral-dovish reaction to yesterday’s Bank of Canada statement,” said Colin Cieszynski, senior market analyst at CMC Markets.

Commodities were mixed as the May crude contract on the New York Mercantile Exchange was 75 cents higher to US$104.51 a barrel.

May copper rose a cent to US$3.04 a pound while June bullion declined $4.10 to US$1,299.40 an ounce.