Canadian Dollar Falls Against Most Majors

The Canadian currency declined against most of its major counterparts following the release of some key data during New York morning trading on Wednesday.

As expected, Canadian wholesale sales in current dollars fell for a seventh straight month in April, declining 0.6% to $40.3 billion, according to data released Wednesday by Statistics Canada. Economists expected wholesale sales to drop 0.7 percent in April.

The Statistics Canada also said that, Canada's leading indicator dropped for the ninth consecutive month in May, but the rate of the decline slowed considerably due to a comeback in the stock market.

The shift from a 0.9% drop in April to a 0.1% dip in May was the largest monthly change in the index in either direction since December 1965. The turnaround reflected a 2.6% increase in the unsmoothed index, equalling its largest monthly gain in 30 years.

The loonie extended previous session's downtrend against the US dollar and the euro in New York morning deals today. At 10:35 am ET, the loonie dropped to a 1-month low of 1.5864 against the euro and a 4-week low of 1.1451 versus the greenback, which may be compared to Tuesday's closing values of 1.5717 and 1.1358, respectively. Thereafter, the loonie reversed its direction and as of now worth1.1355 against the greenback and 1.5752 versus the euro.

Against the Japanese yen, the loonie also ticked down in morning session and touched a 3-week low of 83.73 by about 10:45 am ET.

Crude oil inventories fell much more than expected last week, according to data released by the Energy Information Administration on Wednesday. However, gasoline stockpiles were much higher than forecast.

U.S. commercial crude oil inventories decreased by 3.9 million barrels in the week ended June 12. Economists were looking for a decline of about 1.7 million barrels. At 357.7 million barrels, U.S. crude oil inventories remain above the upper boundary of the average range for this time of year.