Forex - Canadian dollar strengthens vs US dollar after strong employment data 02/08/2008

LONDON (Thomson Financial) - The Canadian dollar strengthened against the US dollar following a strong set of employment data, which dampened hopes for a large interest rate cut at the Bank of Canada's next meeting in March.

Statistics Canada said jobs rose by 46,000 in January, boosting the employment rate to a record high of 63.8 pct.

This brought the unemployment rate down to 5.8 pct from 5.9 pct in December, confounding Thomson IFR Markets' consensus expectation for a rise to 6.0 pct.

"The probability of the BoC doing a 50 basis point cut has dropped significantly," said James Vola at Thomson IFR Markets.

"The economy has had another monster print for employment and wages are rising, and the BoC does not seem likely to add to much fuel to the economy's fire."

At 12.49 pm, the US dollar had weakened to 1.0018 cad, from 1.0074 cad prior to the data.

TFN NEWS BRIEFING: Macroeconomics highlights to 10:10 GMT

US, EU unlikely to stop Microsoft deal

WASHINGTON (AP) - U.S. and European antitrust regulators aren't likely

to prevent Microsoft from buying Yahoo, analysts said Friday, though scrutiny of

the deal could drag on for months.

2008-02-01 23:31:41

EconoLog

NEW YORK (AP) - Is the U.S. economy slipping into recession? Economists,

analysts, company executives and investors are increasingly recognizing the

possibility. Following are some comments Friday assessing the state of the

economy, and what may happen if it slides into a recession:

-- Analysts from Moody's in a conference call cited heightened fear of a

recession as one of the reasons the ratings agency is likely to downgrade some

bond insurers' financial-strength ratings by the end of the month.