Canadian dollar climbs after U.S. Fed officials endorse low interest rates

Officials with the U.S. Federal Reserve noting interest rates will remain low as a strategy to bolster the recovering economy pushed the Canadian dollar to achieve its biggest gain thus far this year against the U.S. dollar on Friday, according to Bloomberg.

The loonie also followed the upward tick of commodities and equities as the nation's economy is based on the export of its natural resources, with the top one being crude oil.

"The market is comfortable in selling the U.S. dollar today, buying equities and commodities," managing director of foreign exchange Jack Spitz with National Bank of Canada in Toronto told the news service. "The Canadian dollar, despite the poor showing at the 8:30 number, has been an outperformer."

The past six months have seen the loonie gain 3.3 percent, establishing it as the second-best performing monetary unit of 10 developed nation currencies. It trails only the dollar of New Zealand.

The monetary unit was not influenced by disappointing economic data from China, the globe's most rapidly developing economy, according to the Canadian Press. Gross domestic product in China during the first quarter of the year was lower than projections and lower than the total from the fourth quarter of last year.