Home USD/CAD Outlook – April 19-23
Canadian Dollar Forecast

USD/CAD Outlook – April 19-23

A busy week awaits the Canadian dollar with the rate decision being the highlight. Here’s an outlook for the 7 Canadian events and an updated technical analysis for USD/CAD.

USD/CAD graph with support and resistance lines on it. Click to enlarge:

USD/CAD forecast

The Canadian dollar continued to struggle with parity, and seemed to improve its positions in the past week before retreating on the Goldman Sachs news. Now it will depend mostly on Canadian indicators. Let’s start the review. The technical analysis will follow:

  1. Foreign Securities Purchases: Published on Monday at 12:30 GMT. The flow of money into Canada has exceeded expectations in recent months. Each time, expectations were for a flow of under 10 billion dollars, but they hit 11 billion at times. Also this time, the 11.8 billion figures is predicted to be followed by only 7.29 billion. Will there be another surprise? This figure shows the confidence in the economy.
  2. Rate decision: Published on Tuesday at 13:00 GMT. Mark Carney and the BOC are getting close to the boiling point. Canadian indicators continue to improve, the price of oil is rising and the end of June – the time for an interest rate hike is getting very close. If he repeats his statement about a hike at the end of Q2, the loonie will only shake. But if this line is removed, traders can expect a move in the Overnight Rate  to come sooner than later. Every word in the BOC Rate Statement will be closely watched. This is the key event for the week, and may be decisive for the ongoing battle for parity.
  3. Wholesale Sales: Published on Wednesday at 12:30 GMT. While this is a late figure, released 50 days after the month ends, this still has a strong impact on the currency. The rise of 3% in sales last month was a big surprise and helped the loonie. This time, a rise of 1.3% is predicted.
  4. Leading Index: Published on Thursday at 12:30 GMT. Also here, the composite index is based on economic indicators that have already been released, but this still has an impact. This indicator slowed down in the past two months, growing at a rate under 1%. The rise of 0.8% that was seen last month will probably be repeated this time.
  5. BOC Monetary Policy Report: Published on Thursday at 14:30 GMT. The report outlines the economic  situation  and inflation status. It usually provides strong hints about future policy and tends to shake the markets. This can be viewed as a complementary event to the rate decision. 45 minutes after the release, BOC governor Mark Carney will hold a press conference to explain the report.
  6. CPI: Published on Friday at 11:00 GMT. After a few stable months, Core CPI picked up last month, rising by 0.7%, more than 0.3% that was predicted. It’s now predicted to rise by only 0.1%. CPI, that rose by 0.4%, as predicted, will probably rise by 0.2%. Note that a similar rise a few months ago didn’t turn into a trend. If these expectations are realized, there will be no reason to rush with a rate hike – a bigger rise in prices is needed in this key indicator.
  7. Retail Sales: Published on Friday at 12:30 GMT. This important consumer related indicator is published just 90 minutes after the CPI and closes the week for the loonie. The volume of retail sales is expected to rise by 1.1%, more than last month’s 0.7% rise. Core retail sales, which surprised with a 1.8% growth rate last month, will probably rise by 0.9% this time.

USD/CAD Technical Analysis

Contrary to other currencies, the loonie didn’t enjoy a weekend gap, and continued trading around parity. USD/CAD later plunged to a new yearly low – 0.9953, before retreating. Friday’s dollar storm sent the pair high up, closing at 1.0126, above last week’s peak.

Small changes have been made to the lines since last week’s outlook. USD/CAD is currently in a range between the minor support line of 1.01 and 1.02, the 2009 low.

Looking up above 1.02, the next line is also rather minor – 1.03. This was a significant line in 2008, and a swing high in March.  Higher, 1.04 is an important line that worked well as a support and resistance line many times in recent months, and is now a very strong resistance line.

Looking down below the minor line of 1.01, parity continues to be a critical line that the currencies battle on. This battle isn’t over yet.

Even lower, 0.98 is the next support line, working as such way back in 2008. It’s followed by a stronger one – 0.97.

I remain bearish on USD/CAD.

Despite the Goldman Sachs scandal, after reaching parity, strong Canadian indicators will probably push USD/CAD lower.

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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.