The Canadian dollar was mixed today, falling versus safe currencies, like the US dollar and the Japanese yen, but trading flat or even rising against others. Domestic macroeconomic reports did not help the currency to find direction as they were mixed themselves.
Statistics Canada reported that gross domestic product rose 0.3% in October from the previous month following the 0.1% decline in September. Economists had predicted a smaller increase by 0.2%.
At the same time, retail sales also rose 0.3%, but they missed the average forecast, which had promised a bigger gain of 0.4%. Core components of retail sales showed no growth, while analysts had predicted an increase by 0.2%.
The Bank of Canada released its Business Outlook Survey, which was mostly positive. The report said:
The Business Outlook Survey indicator decreased slightly but is still elevated, signalling that business sentiment overall continues to be positive.
Prices for crude oil, Canada’s key export commodity, were falling. Fears of oversupply on the market were pushing crude down, and that was affecting the loonie negatively.
USD/CAD jumped from 1.3508 to 1.3589 as of 18:53 GMT today, trading near the highest level since May 2017. CAD/JPY slid from 82.38 to 81.96, and its daily low of 81.82 was the lowest since April 3. AUD/CAD edged down from the open of 0.9595 to 0.9573 after rallying to the daily high of 0.9628 earlier.
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