It’s surprising to see the loonie lagging today given today’s strong employment report. The country added 37.3K jobs compared to 15K expected and the unemployment rate fell to 5.7% compared to 5.9% forecast.
If that wasn’t enough, oil prices rallied and the US dollar fell, dropping the pair briefly to 1.3420 but there has since been a steady recovery and the pair is now higher on the day, up 5 pips to 1.3460. The loonie was the top performer yesterday so many there is some repositioning but it’s strange to see the Canadian currency down when AUD and NZD are both solidly higher and stocks are hitting records.
A big part of the turn was WTI crude fading to $76.49 from a high of $77.29 but oil is still slightly positive on the day, so that’s not a great reason to sell the loonie.
USDCAD 10m chart