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Canadian dollars.JONATHAN HAYWARD/The Canadian Press

The Canadian dollar closed lower Wednesday as the U.S. currency strengthen amid the release of minutes of the Federal Reserve's latest interest rate meeting in October.

The loonie fell 0.40 of a cent to end at 88.10 cents (U.S.).

The minutes showed Fed officials expressing confidence in the U.S. economy and anticipating that it would continue to improve. It also showed that the policy makers grappled with whether or not they should stop using the phrase "considerable time" when speaking about how much longer the U.S. central bank would keep its key interest rate low following the end of its monthly bond purchases.

At the Oct. 28-29 meeting, the officials voted to end the Fed's quantitative easing program, involving bond purchases, at the end of last month – completing a gradual reduction that began last December. The Fed also decided to keep using the phrase "considerable time" to avoid its removal being misinterpreted by financial markets.

Rates have been near zero since the 2008 financial crisis. Markets generally expect the Fed to move around the middle of 2015.

The officials also showed that they were concerned about the volatility of U.S. stock markets, weakness in Europe and Asia and inflation, which has been running below the Fed's target of 2 per cent.

The Canadian dollar had weakened overnight after the U.S. Senate rejected a proposal to fast-track the approval of TransCanada's controversial Keystone XL pipeline. Pipeline supporters needed 60 votes to move the bill forward, but they fell short with a vote 59-41 in favour.

The loonie had risen in recent days, partly from optimism that approval for the pipeline would be secured, which would be a huge support for the Alberta oil sands.

"Accordingly, the debate over the future of Keystone will be pushed into 2015, where a Republican-controlled Senate might have a different outcome," said Camilla Sutton, chief foreign exchange strategist at Bank of Nova Scotia.

On the commodity markets, crude continued to be stuck around the $75-a-barrel level. The December contract closed down 3 cents at $74.58 a barrel.

December copper gained 4 cents to $3.05 a pound while December gold bullion fell $3.20 to $1,193.90 an ounce.

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Study and track financial data on any traded entity: click to open the full quote page. Data updated as of 28/03/24 10:29am EDT.

SymbolName% changeLast
BNS-N
Bank of Nova Scotia
+0.49%51.41
BNS-T
Bank of Nova Scotia
+0.42%69.71
CADUSD-FX
Canadian Dollar/U.S. Dollar
+0.08%0.73765
TRP-N
TC Energy Corp
+0.4%39.8
TRP-T
TC Energy Corp
+0.37%54

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