The Canadian dollar today fell against its US peer following the release of disappointing jobs data, which missed expectations by a considerable margin. The loonie erased all of the gains made against the greenback earlier this week amid the highly anticipated Saudi Aramco IPO.
The USD/CAD currency pair today rallied from a low of 1.3171 in the mid-European session to a high of 1.3259 erasing most of the gains made by the loonie earlier this week.
The currency pair’s gains came in the American session as the upbeat US non-farm payrolls report triggered a spike in the greenback as tracked by the US Dollar Index, which hit a high of 97.84. The loonie tanked after Statistics Canada released the country’s labour force survey, which missed expectations. Investors expected the country to create 10,000 new jobs only for the actual print to show Canada’s economy shed 71,200 jobs. The unemployment rate also rose to 5.9%, while analysts had predicted that the rate would remain at 5.5%.
A spike in global crude oil prices as tracked by the West Texas Intermediate, which rose to 59.8 after Saudi Arabia announced more cuts in oil production, could not help the commodity-dependent loonie.
The upbeat US non-farm payrolls report for November released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics kept ensured that the greenback was stronger than the loonie. The upbeat University of Michigan consumer sentiment survey for December also demonstrated improved US consumer expectations boosting the dollar.
The currency pair’s performance over the upcoming weekend is likely to be affected by geopolitical events and crude oil prices.
The USD/CAD currency pair was trading at 1.3265 as of 16:04 GMT, having risen from a low of 1.3171. The CAD/JPY currency pair was trading at 81.93, having dropped from a high of 82.52.
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