The Canadian dollar jumped today against its US counterpart and the Japanese yen on positive macroeconomic data from the United States and good news from Europe. The currency posted losses against the euro.
Virtually all economic reports from the USA were good today, particularly unemployment claims that fell, even though analysts predicted an increase. The European Central Bank began swapping Greek bonds, allowing private bondholders to participate in reducing Greece’s debt, while giving the indebted nation time to resolve its problems.
It’s rare these days to see good news from both America and Europe at the same time and markets reacted very positively to such turn of events. The Standard & Poorâs 500 Index jumped as much as 1.1 percent, following earlier drop by 0.2 percent. The news had a positive impact on Canada’s currency directly, but also provided an indirect help by boosting crude oil, the key Canadian export. March futures on oil advanced 0.5 percent to $102.34 per barrel in New York.
USD/CAD slipped from 0.9996 to 0.9968 as of 23:58 GMT today, following earlier advance to 1.0049. CAD/JPY jumped from 78.39 to 79.22, the highest price since October 31, before trading at about 79.02. At the same time, EUR/CAD went up from 1.3057 to 1.3084, while earlier it touched the daily minimum of 1.3019.
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