The Canadian dollar climbed on Friday after employment data demonstrated a shockingly good result for April. The disappointing housing report had hardly any impact on the currency.
Statistics Canada reported that the number of employed people jumped by as much as 106,500 in April from the previous month, almost ten times the forecast amount of 11,700! The notable gains were in part-time work for youth. Furthermore, the unemployment rate ticked down unexpectedly from 5.8% to 5.7%.
Building permits rose by 2.1% in March from February. While it was a far better reading that the drop by 5.1% in the previous month, it still failed to hit analysts’ projections of a 2.4% growth.
But clearly, markets were far more interested in the amazing employment data, allowing the loonie to rally against basically all of its most-traded rivals. The fact that markets reacted surprisingly calmly to the news about US tariffs on Chinese goods helped the currency as well.
USD/CAD slumped from 1.3475 to settle at 1.3413, reaching the low of 1.3380 intraday. EUR/CAD declined from 1.5106 to 1.5068. CAD/JPY surged from 81.44 to 81.96.
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Canadian Dollar Jumps on Stellar Employment Data
