The Canadian dollar was firm today even as domestic macroeconomic data was surprisingly poor. While the loonie fell versus its US counterpart, which itself got boost from positive domestic data, the Canadian currency was firm against other major rivals.
Statistics Canada reported that the net number of jobs fell by 2,200 in June. That is instead of rising by 10,000 as analysts had predicted ahead of the report. The unemployment rate ticked up from 5.4% to 5.5%, in line with expectations.
Yet the Canadian dollar managed to hold its ground despite the negative data. The possible reason for that was the fact that the report was not as bad as it might look at the first glance. Firstly, the drop was the result of losses in part-time jobs, while full-time jobs demonstrated substantial gain. Secondly, some analysts pointed out that wage growth surged to 3.6% in June, year-on-year, from 2.6% in the preceding two months.
Employment was not the only indicator that showed disappointing figures. The Ivey PMI dropped 52.4 in June from 55.9 in May. That is compared to the consensus forecast of an increase to 56.2.
USD/CAD jumped from 1.3049 to 1.3106 as of 15:39 GMT today, touching the high of 1.3136 intraday. EUR/CAD rallied from 1.4724 to 4749 intraday but retreated to 1.4697 later, trading near the lowest level since October 2017. AUD/CAD declined from 0.9162 to 0.9130, backing off from the daily high of 0.9179.
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