A pay raise next year?
The Canadian dollar closed down more than half a cent Thursday as a disappointing trade report from China sent prices for oil and metals lower.
The loonie was down 0.73 cents (U.S.) at 102.5 cents.
China reported a surprise trade deficit of $7.3-billion in February as surging prices for oil and other commodities pushed up its import bill - raising worries about the strength of the world's second-largest economy. Economists had been expecting China to report a $4.9-billion surplus.
Markets are also looking forward to more key Chinese data on Friday, including inflation, industrial production and the latest purchasing managers survey.
China has been one of the main pillars of the global economy over the past few years and its huge demand for commodities has driven oil and metals prices sharply higher.
Also pressuring the loonie was a sizable drop in Canada's trade surplus in January, which narrowed sharply to $116-million from $1.7-billion in December.
Oil prices declined with the April crude contract on the New York Mercantile Exchange falling $1.68 to $102.70 a barrel. Prices were volatile, moving as low as about $100 and as high as $105 a barrel.
Crude prices are still up sharply from just under $90 a barrel on Feb. 18 amid unrest that has toppled governments in Tunisia and Egypt and sparked heavy fighting in Libya.
There are fears such upheavals could spread to oil producers in the Persian Gulf, particularly Saudi Arabia, where police reportedly opened fire on protesters at a rally in the eastern city of Qatif on Thursday.
Metal prices also fell back as the May copper contract in New York lost a cent to $4.20 a pound. Copper prices have slipped almost 7 per cent from mid-February amid worries that higher energy prices could hobble demand.
The April gold contract on the Nymex fell $17.10 to $1,412.50 an ounce.
Traders also looked ahead to Fridays' release of the February employment report from Statistics Canada. Economists expect the agency to report the economy created around 27,000 jobs last month with a slight drop in the jobless rate to 7.7 per cent.