TORONTO – The Canadian dollar was slightly lower Wednesday amid generally positive commodity prices and ahead of key economic reports.

The currency was off 0.07 of a cent to 90.13 cents US.

The economic calendar for Wednesday was light with traders looking to the mid-morning release of new U.S. home sales figures.

Economists think the unusually tough winter conditions will also affect this set of data with sales expected to decline about four per cent to an annualized pace of 398,000. But they also note that the sector is suffering from last year’s spike in mortgage rates.

Thursday will see the release of the current account balance for the fourth quarter on Thursday and the latest gross domestic product figures on Friday.

Beyond that, traders awaited next interest rate announcement from the Bank of Canada next Wednesday and Canadian and U.S. jobs data at the end of the week.

Commodity prices were mainly higher with the April crude contract in New York up 58 cents to US$102.41 a barrel.

March copper was ahead two cents at US$3.27 a pound while April bullion fell $9.90 to US$1,332.80 an ounce.