Increasing concerns about the American economy is benefiting the Canadian dollar, which has climbed to a new five-year high Thursday morning. It’s up over US70¢ as the American dollar takes a beating against other currencies.

The Canadian dollar climbed to US69.76¢ on Wednesday and has moved higher in Asia and the UK during Thursday trading. The loonie got a boost from the World Health Organization calling off its SARS travel advisory, as well as a 0.2% rise in gross domestic product in February.

There was some good news from the U.S. Labour Department this morning. Productivity improved in the first quarter, increasing at an annual rate of 1.6% as companies produced more while they kept work forces lean.

The gain in non-farm business productivity — the amount of output per hour of work – for the first three months of 2003 was more than twice the size of the 0.7% growth rate registered in the previous quarter.

On the downside, though, the number of workers filing first-time applications for unemployment benefits declined last week, but benefit claims are still high above the crucial 400,000 comfort-level. Initial jobless claims fell by 13,000 to 448,000 in the week that ended Saturday. The four-week moving average, which smoothes out weekly fluctuations rose to 442,000, the highest level in more than a year.

All of this points to a weak open on the equities markets. Investors will be waiting to hear the latest news on the American economy at 10:00 ET this morning, when the Institute for Supply Management index releases its latest data on the shrinking American manufacturing sector.

In Europe, the Paris and Frankfurt exchanges are closed for May Day celebrations. So was the Hang Seng in Hong Kong.

The London market is down 26.4 to 3,899.6.

Overnight, Tokyo’s Nikkei average climbed 31.87 points to 7,863.29. Japanese bank stocks added value after a government stating that it will push the central bank for more measures to support Tokyo stock prices. Shares in Japan’s biggest bank, Mizuho, jumped 7.8%, while UFJ and Sumitomo Mitsui Financial rose 7.3% and 4.8%.

In business news, there are reports out Thursday that Toronto-Dominion Bank is exploring the sale of the U.S. arm of its TD Waterhouse Discount Brokerage unit. TD Bank could reap about $1.5 billion by such a sales. TD Bank has hired investment bank Goldman Sachs Group Inc. to explore several options, including a possible sale, but hasn’t made a final decision.