- Comments from FOMC members weigh on the buck on Friday.
- WTI rallies to its highest level in more than two weeks.
- US Dollar Index stays in the red near 95.30.
The USD/CAD pair extended its daily losses in the early NA session and touched a fresh session low at 1.3050. As of writing, the pair was trading a couple of pips above that level, losing 0.2% on the day.
Ahead of Fed Chairman Jerome Powell’s speech at the Jackson Hole Symposium, Cleveland Fed President Loretta Mester told Bloomberg that the case for raising rates was pretty compelling and argued that they didn’t need to overreact to inflation going a bit above the target level. Earlier in the day, St. Louis Fed President James Bullard said that Powell will be ‘very careful’ with his remarks and stated that markets were putting very high odds of a September rate hike.
The US Dollar Index, which rose all the way up to 95.70 on Thursday, reversed its course and was last seen down 0.33% on the day at 95.32. The data from the U.S. on Friday showed that durable goods orders declined by 1.7% in July to fall short of the market expectation of -0.5%.
In the meantime, the commodity-sensitive loonie is receiving an additional boost from the strong performance of crude oil. The barrel of West Texas Intermediate recently rose to a 16-day high at $69.16 and was last seen at $69, where it was up $1.15.
Technical levels to consider
The pair could encounter the first support at 1.3000 (psychological level) ahead of 1.2960 (Aug. 7 low) and 1.2920 (Jun. 8 low). On the upside, resistances align at 1.3100 (daily high/50-DMA), 1.3175 (Aug. 16 high) and 1.3290 (Jul. 19 high).
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