The Canadian dollar today weakened against the US dollar after the release of weak Canadian CPI and retail sales data by Statistics Canada. Other releases from the US docket such as the Markit US Manufacturing PMI also served to boost the US dollar against its Canadian counterpart.
The USD/CAD currency pair opened today’s session on a downtrend, but quickly changed course after the Canadian and US releases to recover most of its earlier losses.
The release of the Canadian consumer price index early in the American session boosted the loonie against the US dollar. The CPI came in at 0.1% on a monthly basis in August as opposed to the expected 0.2% increase. The CPI was recorded at 1.4% on an annualized basis, which was lower than the market consensus of 1.5%. Canada’s retail sales for July recorded a 0.4% increase on a monthly basis, which was higher than the expected 0.2% gain. Retail sales excluding autos disappointed by coming in at 0.2% versus the expected 0.4%.
Several releases from the UK docket such as the Markit US Manufacturing PMI, which met expectations by coming in at 53, boosted the greenback against the loonie. The Markit US Services PMI was lower than expected as it was recorded at 55.1 versus the expected 55.7.
The currency pair’s future performance is likely to be affected by global crude oil prices as well as the release of US consumer confidence data scheduled for Tuesday.
The USD/CAD currency pair was trading at 1.2285 as at 14:28 GMT having retraced some of its gains from an intraday high of 1.2318. The CAD/JPY pair was trading at 91.11 having dropped from a daily high of 91.45.
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