The Canadian dollar fell against major currencies today, joining other commodity currencies in decline. The main theme on Monday was the escalating threat of trade wars between world’s major economies.
Commodity currencies are usually sensitive to swings in market sentiment, and this was certainly the case lately. With signs of more and more protectionist measures from the United States and similar responses from their trading partners, risk aversion was ruling on markets, and riskier currencies linked to raw materials suffered from that.
The loonie had to look for driving forces outside of Canada as Canada’s economic calendar is very light this week. There is just one important indicator, gross domestic product, scheduled for release by the end of the week, and up until Friday the calendar is basically empty.
Crude oil was unable to help the currency due to confusing fundamentals and mixed performance, though the North American WTI grade actually gained on Monday.
USD/CAD rose from 1.3268 to 1.3290 as of 22:11 GMT today, touching the high of 1.3325. EUR/CAD gained from 1.5474 to 1.5552. CAD/JPY fell from 82.74 to 82.55, and its daily low of 82.17 was the lowest since April 3.
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