Canadian dollar coins, or loonies, are displayed on a map of North America.Paul Chiasson/The Canadian Press
The Canadian dollar closed higher Wednesday ahead of next week's U.S. Federal Reserve meeting.
The loonie gained 0.30 of a cent to end at 91.45 cents (U.S.), rebounding off lows of the morning as the U.S. currency weakened somewhat.
The greenback has been strengthening as traders await the Fed's scheduled interest rate announcement next Wednesday, when analysts think the central bank could be set to change to a more hawkish tone on rates.
"The Fed's forward guidance [that interest rates will be on hold for a considerable time after the asset purchase program ends] is expected to be changed, likely to a line that ties the expected path of interest rates to developments on inflation, employment and financial market conditions," said Camilla Sutton, chief foreign exchange strategist at Bank of Nova Scotia.
"This shift would highlight an increasingly hawkish Fed and likely support the [U.S. dollar] further," she said.
Markets have generally expected the Fed to start raising short-term rates around the middle of next year, but there has been much speculation that an improving economy would encourage the central bank to move earlier.
Meanwhile, the Scottish independence referendum on Sept. 18 has provided markets with a good helping of uncertainty.
Recent opinion polls have shown the two sides neck and neck. With polls showing the referendum too close to call, the pound has fallen almost 3 cents this week against the greenback to a 10-month low of $1.6052 Wednesday.
Prices were mixed on commodity markets where October crude in New York fell $1.08 to a nine-month low of $91.67 a barrel as the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries said in a monthly outlook that demand for the cartel's oil will be lower next year. A surge in U.S. production was expected to slash OPEC production to levels not seen since 2009, when output fell due to the global financial crisis.
December copper was unchanged at $3.10 a pound, while December gold gained $1 to $1,249.50 an ounce.