* Oil falls below $62 on China virus concerns
* Canadian govt bond prices rise across the maturity curve
By Saqib Iqbal Ahmed
NEW YORK, Jan 24 (Reuters) - The Canadian dollar edged lower against its U.S. counterpart on Thursday, lingering close to the one-month low hit in the previous session, as the coronavirus outbreak weighed on oil prices.
The price of oil, one of Canada's major exports, fell below $62 a barrel on Friday and headed for a weekly decline on concern that the coronavirus in China may spread, curbing travel and oil demand. 9:07AM EST (1407 GMT), the Canadian dollar CAD=D4 was trading down about 0.02% at 1.3131 to the greenback, or 76.16 U.S. cents.
On Wednesday, the loonie came under pressure after the Bank of Canada (BoC) left its benchmark interest rate on hold at 1.75% as expected but said a future cut was possible should a recent slowdown in domestic growth persist. seen before how BoC meetings can result in lengthy trends for USD/CAD, lasting at least until the next BoC meeting. I think we may well have one of those scenarios now as well, so I wouldn't necessarily fade the move at this point," Marshall Gittler, chief strategist at ACLS Global, said in a note.
The loonie has fallen about 1% since the start of the year after climbing 5% in 2019, when it was the top-performing G10 currency.
Canadian retail sales were up 0.9% in November from October at C$51.48 billion ($39.19 billion), on stronger sales at motor vehicle and parts dealers, as well as food and beverage stores, Statistics Canada said on Friday. government bond prices rose across the maturity curve, with the two-year CA2YT=RR price up 0.9 Canadian cent to yield 1.514% and the benchmark 10-year CA10YT=RR rising 16 Canadian cents to yield 1.396%.