Loonie falls against greenback as monetary easing prospects dim

Friday saw the value of the Canadian dollar slip against the U.S. dollar, pulled down by waning optimism for intervention by worldwide central banks, according to Reuters.

When delivering testimony on Thursday to the Joint Economic Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S. Federal Reserve chair Benjamin Bernanke did not indicate additional monetary stimulus is afoot. But China, which slashed interest rates for the first time in four years on Thursday, was preparing to release data about the state of its economy, which trails only the U.S. for the globe's largest.

"There's lots of worry about the activity indicators that come out of China tomorrow," global head of foreign exchange strategy Adam Cole with Royal Bank of Canada in London told the news source. "That generally gave markets a much less positive tone for risk and that took all the risk-proxy currencies lower including the Canadian dollar."

The loonie also endured the consequences of Spain's sovereign credit rating downgraded three levels by Fitch Ratings on Thursday as the nation hosts the euro zone's fourth-largest economy.

The Canadian Press reports the loonie did not benefit from a labor report stating job creation was better than forecast.