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Canadian dollar's weekly winning streak ends as oil slides

FILE PHOTO: A Canadian dollar coin, commonly known as the "Loonie", is pictured in this illustration picture taken in Toronto

By Fergal Smith

TORONTO (Reuters) - The Canadian dollar weakened against its U.S. counterpart on Friday, with the currency adding to this week's decline as oil prices fell and data showed the largest divestment of Canadian securities by foreign investors in nearly four years.

The loonie was trading 0.5% lower at 1.3390 to the greenback, or 74.68 U.S. cents, after touching its weakest level since Nov. 10 at 1.3409.

Among G10 currencies, only the Norwegian crown posted a larger decline. Norway, like Canada, is a major producer of oil.

For the week, the loonie was down 1%. It follows four straight weeks of gains.

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"I think fundamentals are reasserting themselves," said Eric Theoret, global macro strategist at Manulife Investment Management. "When you got crude prices trading the way they are, that's going to hit the CAD."

U.S. crude oil futures settled 1.9% lower at $80.08 a barrel, extending their pullback from a peak of $93.74 earlier this month, due to concern about weakened demand in China and further increases to U.S. interest rates.

Foreign investors sold a net C$22.3 billion ($16.7 billion) in Canadian securities in September, the largest divestment since December 2018.

Separate data showed producer prices in Canada rose 2.4% in October from September.

To tackle inflation, the Bank of Canada has lifted interest rates to a 14-year high of 3.75%.

Canada is facing pressure to reverse its decision to end issuing real return bonds, a product pension plans rely on to ensure that inflation does not erode the assets they set aside to pay benefits to retirees.

Canadian bond yields rose across a more deeply inverted yield curve.

The 10-year increased nearly one basis point to 3.122%, while it was trading one basis point further below the 2-year to a gap of roughly 83 basis points.

(Reporting by Fergal Smith; Editing by Alison Williams and Richard Chang)