BZ: Canadian Dollar (FXC) Falls After Employment Data
The Canadian Dollar (CAD) is trading significantly lower this morning against other major currencies as a result of the disappointing job data for the month of February.
The Canadian economy recorded only a modest gain by 15K in the job front, compared to the 69K gain in January and less than the general forecast of 23.5K. The unemployment rate also was slightly worse than expected, coming out unchanged from compared to January at 7.8%, while most of the analysts had forecasted a drop to 7.7%.
The data could become a serious blow to the overall bullishness among the economists about the Canadian economy and the rate hike by the Bank of Canada before the second quarter of this year, especially considering that yesterday's January trade balance came out significantly lower as well (0.1B vs. 2.5B expected).
After the numbers were released, the Canadian currency, which was already on the back foot against the US Dollar (USD), fell even further as the USD/CAD climbed to 0.9790s and the bias remains to the upside at this point.