Home USD/CAD Outlook – September 12-16
Canadian Dollar Forecast, Minors

USD/CAD Outlook – September 12-16

The Canadian dollar couldn’t resist the global worries and ended with the weakest close against the dollar since the beginning of the year. Production data and Foreign Securities Purchases are the highlight of this week.  Here’s an  outlook  for the Canadian events, and an updated technical analysis for USD/CAD.

The Canadian job market surprisingly lost 5500 jobs in August contrary to expectations for 24.2K gain. The US slowdown affects Canada who is strongly dependent on US market demand. Will this slowdown continue?

USD/CAD  daily chart with support and resistance lines on it. Click to enlarge:USD/CAD Chart  September 12 16 2011

Let’s Start:

  1. Capacity Utilization Rate: Wednesday, 12:30. Canadian industries reached  79% of its production capacity in the first quarter, rising  2.2% from  76.8% in the previous quarter. This pick up in production indicates expansion trend. A further gain to 79.7% is expected now.
  2. Manufacturing Sales: Thursday, 12:30. Canadian manufacturing sales plunged by 1.5%, much worse than the 0.3% drop predicted and the third consecutive decrease,   spoiling the BOC’ optimistic forecast of 1.5% economic expansion in the second quarter. An increase of 1.3% is predicted.
  3. New Motor Vehicle Sales: Thursday, 12:30. Motor vehicle sales increased by 10.8% in June to 141,882 units well above predictions of 2.4% gain following 6.1% plunge in the previous month.
  4. Foreign Securities Purchases: Friday, 12:30. Foreigners decreased their holdings of Canadian securities by about $3.5 billion in June, all of it in debt instruments. Nevertheless, foreign investors bought the same amount of Canadian bonds in the second quarter as they did in the first quarter.

*All times are GMT.

USD/CAD  Technical  Analysis

Dollar/CAD had a nice start to the week, pushing higher. After sliding back down, it made another push up and stopped at 0.9977 (mentioned last week).

Technical lines, from top to bottom:

We start from 1.02, which was the historic low of 2009, and is a significant line of resistance, getting closer now. It is followed by 1.0140, which provided a cap for the pair towards the end of 2010.

The final line above parity is 1.0060. It was the highest level in 2011 and is getting closer.  The very round number of USD/CAD parity is a clear line of course, and it will be closely watched.

Under parity, we have two close lines – 0.9977, which was a trough in 2010, was also tested at the beginning of March and proved to be significant just now. It is  immediate  resistance.  Below, 0.9915 was a peak back in June and is now minor resistance, after being run through recently.

0.9850 was a swing high in May, and was weak support just now.  The round number of 0.98 also served as a cushion, and is currently stronger than 0.9850.

0.9750 was a very distinctive line earlier, separating ranges in a great way. It provided a bouncing spot for further moves higher and proved to be strong. 0.9667 was a cushion in March and later worked as resistance. This line provided support recently, and had an important role in holding back recovery attempts, over and over again. The break above it pushed the pair quickly.

I continue being bullish on USD/CAD.

The disappointing job figures in Canada show the dependence on the US, which is seeing demand fall. Also the higher prospects for a rate cut in Canada, even before year’s end, mean a weaker Canadian dollar, together with the inability of oil to rise. USD/CAD parity could be won this week.

Further reading:

Anat Dror

Anat Dror

Anat Dror Senior Writer I conceptualize, design and create multi-lingual websites. Apart from the technical work, my projects usually consist of writing content for these sites in English, French and Hebrew. In the past, I have built, managed and marketed an e-learning center for language studies, including moderating a live community of students. I've also worked as a community organizer