Canada CPI decreases slightly in January. Wholesale Prices drop for December. Loonie falls.

February 19, 2008 - Forex Economic News

Data released out of Canada today focused on wholesale trade and consumer prices. The data came in below market expectations and spurred a decline in the Canadian dollar against the major currencies today. The USD/CAD pair reached the 1.0163 level today in the U.S. afternoon session with the Canadian dollar down approximately 80 pips from the same time yesterday.

Wholesale trade data showed that sales fell 2.9 percent in the month of December to $C42.7 billion in a release by Statistics Canada. Automotive sales showed the largest decline for the month as they declined 8.1 percent. Food, beverage and tobacco, personal and household goods and the building materials sectors all showed declining sales for the month of December. December's results reversed three straight months of positive wholesale data and monthly sales dropped to their lowest levels since November 2006.

Canada Consumer prices.

Canada’s consumer prices increased in January to an annual rate of 2.2 percent, a slight decrease from December’s annual rate of 2.4 percent from data released today by Statistics Canada. Higher gasoline costs and mortgage interest costs pushed consumer prices higher according to the report. Excluding gasoline, prices rose an annual rate of 1.3 percent in January. Month to month CPI declined 0.2 percent from December to January after a rise of 0.1 percent from November to December. Bank of Canada’s core index, a key government measure of inflation, rose 0.1 percent between December and January after a fall of 0.3 percent the month prior. Bank of Canada's Core CPI annual rate from January 2006 to January 2007 registered at 1.4 percent.

Tags: usd/cad, wholesale trade, canada, consumer prices, core cpi, loonie, canadian dollar

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