Investing.com - The U.S. dollar rose to fresh five year highs against the Canadian dollar on Thursday as stronger than forecast data on U.S. retail sales and jobless claims confirmed that the economic recovery is on track.
USD/CAD was up 0.43% to 1.1529, the most since July 2009, from around 1.1477 ahead of the data.
The greenback moved higher after the Labor Department reported that the number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefit unexpectedly fell by 3,000 last week, to 294,000.
The dollar received an additional boost after the Commerce Department reported that U.S. retail sales rose 0.7% last month, beating expectations for a gain of 0.4%.
October’s figure was revised up to 0.5% from a previously reported gain of 0.3%.
Core retail sales, which exclude automobile sales, climbed 0.5% in November, well ahead of expectations for a 0.1% increase.
Last week’s strong U.S. jobs report for November prompted investors to bring forward expectations for the first hike in interest rates to mid-2015 from September 2015 ahead of the data.
Investors were looking ahead to next week’s policy statement from the Federal Reserve amid speculation that policymakers could drop an assurance that interest rates will stay low for a "considerable time".
In Canada, data on Thursday showed that the new housing price index rose 0.1% in October, broadly in line with forecasts.
Elsewhere, the loonie was almost unchanged against the euro, with EUR/CAD at 1.4281.