- The US economy added 164K new jobs in July, unemployment rate holds steady at 3.7%.
- Slightly better wage growth data provided a modest lift to the USD and remained supportive.
- Upbeat Canadian trade balance data/surging Oil prices did little to dent the bullish sentiment.
The Canadian Dollar remained on the defensive against its American counterpart and pushed the USD/CAD pair to fresh multi-week tops, beyond mid-1.3200s post-US monthly jobs report.
The US Dollar held on the defensive after the headline NFP showed that the US economy added 164K new jobs in July, matching consensus estimates and still lower than the previous month’s downwardly revised reading of 193K (224K reported earlier). Meanwhile, the unemployment rate held steady at 3.7% but a slight positive wage growth data offered some respite to the USD bulls and remained supportive of the strong bid tone surrounding the major.
In fact, average hourly earnings bettered expectations and recorded a growth of 0.3% on a monthly basis, with the yearly growth rate ticking higher to 3.2% – in line with consensus estimates, up from 3.1% previous. The data triggered a modest intraday bounce in the US Treasury bond yields and provided a modest lift to the greenback, albeit lacked any strong conviction amid renewed fears of a full-blown trade war between the world’s two largest economies.
Meanwhile, a better than expected Canadian trade balance data, showing a surplus of $0.14 billion in June, as compared to a deficit of $0.30 billion expected, and a strong rebound in Crude Oil prices, now up around 2.5% for the day, did little to lend any support to the commodity-linked currency – Loonie or hinder the pair’s goodish intraday up-move to the highest level since June 20.
Technical levels to watch
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