Home USD/CAD dumps from 61.8% Fibo to cloud support on strong Canadian employment / Big NFP headline miss
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USD/CAD dumps from 61.8% Fibo to cloud support on strong Canadian employment / Big NFP headline miss

  • USD/CAD has been on the move in March so far, rallying from the 1.3120s up to the 1.3470s prior to the nonfarm payrolls and domestic employment data released at the same time today.  
  • USD/CAD is currently trading at 1.3394, down from a high of 1.3467 and printing a fresh low of 1.3392.  

USD/CAD has dropped heavily on the back of double whammy releases for jobs data in both the US and Canada.  Firstly, the US nonfarm payrolls data arrived as a big miss on the headline with the government shutdown put to blame.

The nonfarm payrolls data arrived as follows:  

20k vs 180k headline – This is the worst since Sept 2017. the prior was 304K and revised to +311K. However, not all is bad in the detail of the report.  

  • Two month net revision +12K
  • Unemployment rate 3.8% vs 3.9% expected
  • Participation rate 63.2% vs 63.2% prior
  • Avg hourly earnings +0.4% vs +0.3% exp
  • Avg hourly earnings 3.4% y/y vs +3.3% exp
  • Private payrolls +25K vs +170K exp
  • Manufacturing +4K vs +12K exp
  • U6 underemployment 7.3% vs 8.1% prio
  • The DXY dropped from 97.40s to a low of 97.25 so far.  

The Canadian data arrived as the unemployment rate coming in at 5.8% vs 5.8% estimate although the net change in employment arrived on a very positive note sending the Loonie much higher vs the greenback. The data arrived as +55.9 K versus estimate 1.2 K with the prior month at 66.8 K. (The hourly wage rate was 2.2% versus 1.7% expected – up from 1.8% last month. The participation rate was 65.8 versus 65.6 estimate – Last month 65.6 full-time employment change 67.4 K versus 0.8K est.  Prior month 30.9K part-time employment -11.6K vs -5.7K est. Prior month 36.0K.)

USD/CAD levels

USD/CAD has been in a strong uptrend which achieved a score through the 61.8%Fibo of the late Dec highs around 1.3660 to the late Jan swing lows of 1.3068. Daily RSI and MACD have dipped, but remain in positive territory while the price test the support of the daily cloud and S2 located at 1.3387. A break there exposes the 50% retracement of the same range down at 1.3366 – a prior resistance level in the final week of January.  

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