The U.S. dollar rose today, leaving its Canadian counterpart below the parity level, after the government reported about the March increase in the sales of the new houses and the orders for the manufactured durable goods.

The sales of the new single-family houses jumped 26.9 percent to 411,000 in March 2010 from the February rate of 324,000. New orders for the manufactured durable goods, excluding transportation, increased 2.8 percent in March. The reports signaled that the recovery of the U.S. economy is underway.

The speculation about the growing pace of the economic recovery helped the greenback rise versus the yen as the Japanese currency is losing its appeal as the safe currency. The U.S. dollar also advanced versus the Loonie after the Canada’s inflation unexpectedly slowed.

USD/CAD rose to 1.0031 as of 17:07 GMT today from the opening price of 0.9999. USD/JPY traded near 94.18 after opening at 93.47.

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