- Sharp upsurge in crude oil prices boosts loonie.
- US Dollar Index stays in the positive territory above 95.
- Housing starts in Canada disappoint.
The USD/CAD pair lost its footing in the last couple of hours and fell below mid-1.31s despite the broad-based greenback strength as the commodity-sensitive loonie gathered strength on the back of a sharp increase seen in crude oil prices. As of writing, the pair was down 0.2% on the day at 1.3140.
Earlier today, Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said that the OPEC and its allies could sign a new long-term cooperation deal at the beginning of December and boosted crude oil prices. Furthermore, declining crude oil exports from Iran suggested that the global supply could continue to tighten and provided some extra fuel. The barrel of West Texas Intermediate was last seen trading at $63.83, where it was nearly 2% on the day. The next significant data for crude oil will be the API’s weekly stock report, which is scheduled to be released at 20:30 GMT later today.
Meanwhile, today’s data from Canada revealed that housing starts in Canada came in at 201K on an annual basis in August to fall short of the market expectation of 210.3K.
On the other hand, the US Dollar Index, which tested the critical 95 level earlier in the day, gained traction in the second half of the day and retraced the majority of yesterday’s losses. At the moment, the index is up 0.15% on the day at 95.30. The report published by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics today showed that the number of job openings reached a new rocord high with 6.939 million in July.
Technical levels to consider
The pair could face the first technical resistance at 1.3200/05 (psychological level/Sep. 4 high) ahead of 1.3290 (Jul. 19 high) and 1.3385 (Jun. 27 high). On the downside, supports align at 1.3110 (Sep. 7 low), 1.3080 (50-DMA) and 1.3000 (psychological level).
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