The Canadian dollar today posted slights gains against its US peer after the release of upbeat Canadian May GDP data in the American session. The USD/CAD currency pair was trading sideways with minimal losses for most of today’s session as global crude oil prices remained sidelined.
The USD/CAD currency pair today traded in a range marked by a high of 1.3436 and a low of 1.3404 before breaking lower on the GDP report to hit a low of 1.3381 and was near these lows at the time of writing.
The currency pair traded sideways earlier today as the loonie failed to capitalise on the greenback’s overall weakness as tracked by the US Dollar Index. The loonie’s performance was directly linked to the weak global crude oil prices as tracked by the West Texas Intermediate, which traded as low as 39.64. The release of Canadian GDP data for May, which came in at 4.5% versus the expected 3.5%, boosted the loonie driving the pair lower. Statistics Canada also reported that the country’s industrial production in June was 0.4%, which was slightly lower than consensus estimates of 0.5%.
The release of the US personal consumption expenditure data for June by the Bureau of Economic Analysis could not help the greenback as the pair kept falling. The report showed that personal spending level rose despite incomes falling in June.
The currency pair’s future performance is likely to be affected by crude oil prices and geopolitical events over the weekend.
The USD/CAD currency pair was trading at 1.3374 as at 15:44 GMT, having fallen from a high of 1.3436. The CAD/JPY currency pair was trading at 79.08, having rallied from a low of 77.61.
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