The Canadian dollar jumped to the highest level in a year against its US counterpart today as Canada’s employment growth was much higher than expected. US employment was disappointing and that also added to bullish bias of the Canadian currency. The loonie fell versus the euro and the Japanese yen.
Canadian employers added 34,300 jobs in August, following the drop by 30,400 in July. Economists expected an increase by just 9,900. The unemployment rate remained at 7.3 percent. On top of that, the Ivey Purchasing Managers’ Index was little changed at 62.5, while analysts predicted decline to 61.2.
The poor US employment data fueled speculations that the Federal Reserve will start a third round of quantitative easing. Such talks were positive for the riskier currencies, including the loonie.
USD/CAD dropped from 0.9828 to 0.9779 as of 19:00 GMT today and its daily minimum of 0.9764 was the lowest since September 2, 2011. Meanwhile, EUR/CAD rose from 1.2414 to 1.2516 and CAD/JPY fell from 80.24 to 80.00.
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