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Canadian Dollar at Parity with USD on Building Permits

The Canadian dollar matches one American one. The strengthening of the loonie came as a reaction to a great housing report in Canada, and surprisingly not on important employment figures in both countries.

Canadian employment figures leaped by 15.3% – five times the early expectations that stood on a small rise of 3%. This figure was released at 12:30 GMT, the same time as the Non-Farm Payrolls were released in the US.

Non-Farm Payrolls surprised with a gain of 151K jobs, far better than expected. EUR/USD, GBP/USD dropped on this greenback positive news, but the Canadian dollar leaped. The building permits overcame US strength – USD/CAD dropped from 1.0070 to 1.0000 after the release. USD/CAD parity is with us once again.

Earlier today, mixed employment figures shook the Canadian dollar- on one hand, only 3,00 jobs were gained in Canada, weaker than a gain of 14,000 that was expected. But on the other hand, the unemployment rate unexpectedly dropped from 8% to 7.9%. The reaction in USD/CAD was limited choppy trading. The big move came after the building permits were released.

It’s also important to note that oil prices are on the rise – a rise that began after the  announcement  of quantitative easing in the US – which gave a boost to commodities. As an exporter of oil, Canada and the Canadian dollar enjoy the rising price of oil.

USD/CAD levels below parity are 0.9930 (the 2010 low), 0.98 and 0.97 (levels from 2008). Above, 1.01, 1.02 and 1.0350 will resist a stronger US dollar.

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Yohay Elam

Yohay Elam

Yohay Elam: Founder, Writer and Editor I have been into forex trading for over 5 years, and I share the experience that I have and the knowledge that I've accumulated. After taking a short course about forex. Like many forex traders, I've earned a significant share of my knowledge the hard way. Macroeconomics, the impact of news on the ever-moving currency markets and trading psychology have always fascinated me. Before founding Forex Crunch, I've worked as a programmer in various hi-tech companies. I have a B. Sc. in Computer Science from Ben Gurion University. Given this background, forex software has a relatively bigger share in the posts.