After continuing to advance against the greenback, the Canadian dollar now expects another busy week, with the rate decision being the key event. Will the trend continue, or will we see some consolidation? Here’s an outlook for the Canadian events and an updated technical analysis for USD/CAD.
The Canadian dollar enjoys the rising price of oil, and the weakness of the US dollar. It wasn’t bothered by the somewhat disappointing jobs report. Fresh improved economic data is needed for more gains. Let’s start:
USD/CAD daily chart with support and resistance lines on it. Click to enlarge:
- Trade Balance: Tuesday, 12:30. Canada hardly managed to record a surplus last month – only 100 million. This is expected to widen now, with trade balance reaching 700 million. Note that the US also reports its trade balance at the exact same time. A wide deficit is likely there.
- NHPI: Tuesday, 12:30. Though somewhat overshadowed by the trade figure, this house price indicator is of high importance. Prices of new homes rose recorded modest gains in recent months, between 0.1% to 0.3%. A faster rise of 0.4% is expected now.
- Rate decision: Tuesday, 13:00. The Bank of Canada already made 3 rate hikes since the financial crisis began, with the current Overnight Rate at 1%. The last hike was in September. And now, as the ECB raised its rates and other banks are expected to follow, another pause by the BOC might weaken the Canadian dollar. So, it’s important to watch out for the accompanying statement. IF Mark Carney and his colleagues warn about inflation, the loonie will rise, but this seems quite unlikely at the moment.
- BOC Monetary Policy Report: Wednesday, 14:30. This quarterly report is of high importance to the Canadian dollar, as it includes a deep insight into the central bank’s assessment of the economy, including employment and inflation. 45 minutes after the release of the report, Mark Carney, the governor of the BOC, will hold a press conference to discuss the report. USD/CAD is likely to rock from the release until the end of the press conference.
- Manufacturing Sales: Thursday, 12:30. The volume of sales at the manufacturing level tends to shake shake the loonie. Last month saw a big surge in sales, 4.5%, a rise which provided a boost for the Canadian dollar. This time, a rise of only 0.6% is expected. A drop will weaken the currency.
* All times are GMT.
USD/CAD Technical Analysis
USD/CAD made an attempt to recover, and rose towards 0.97 (mentioned last week), but it only got close. From there, it began falling and went as low as 0.9526 before being capped by 0.9592 and closing at 0.9550.
Looking down, support is found at 0.9510. This was a minor line of support during the big move down at the end of 2007. USD/CAD got close to this line now. It’s followed by 0.9415, which also played a role back then.
Even lower, 0.92 is also of significance, followed by the all time low of 0.9056.
Looking up, 0.96 now turns into minor resistance, after the break down seen now. It’s followed by 0.97, which is already a much stronger line. It was stubborn support earlier in the year.
Moving up, we find 0.98, another support line from the same period of time, that proved to be a strong line in recent weeks. It’s followed by 0.9930. This is the 2010 low and it now works as strong resistance.
The next minor resistance line is very close – 0.9977, another low from 2010. The distinctive line of USD/CAD parity is also resistance, although after it was crossed many times, its significance is reduced. Moving up, 1.0060 is the highest level in the past months and is a minor line of resistance up above parity.
I remain bearish on USD/CAD.
Despite the disappointing jobs report in Canada, rising oil, solid Canadian growth and especially the improvement in the US, all point to further gains.
Further reading:
- For a broad view of all the week’s major events worldwide, read the USD outlook.
- For EUR/USD, check out the Euro to Dollar forecast.
- For the Japanese yen, read the USD/JPY forecast.
- For GBP/USD (cable), look into the British Pound forecast.
- For the Australian dollar (Aussie), check out the AUD to USD forecast.
- For the New Zealand dollar (kiwi), read the NZD forecast.
- For USD/CAD (loonie), check out the Canadian dollar
- For the Swiss Franc, see the USD/CHF forecast.
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