BLBG: Canadian Dollar Fluctuates After Losses on Technical Failures
The Canadian dollar fluctuated after four straight days of losses against its U.S. counterpart as the currency twice failed to fall below a key technical level.
The loonie, as the currency is nicknamed, hasn’t weakened past C$1.01 per U.S. dollar since the Bank of Canada scaled back growth forecasts on Jan. 23. A technical measure has indicated for the past three days the Canadian dollar’s recent decline may have been too far, too fast.
“Given that it hasn’t been able to break above C$1.01, we have seen some sellers come in and maybe position for a bit of a grind back towards parity,” said Blake Jespersen, managing director of foreign exchange at Bank of Montreal, by phone from Toronto, referring to the U.S. dollar versus the loonie. “It had a lot of momentum up to C$1.01, but since it’s stalled, so I think you’re seeing some momentum players come in and sell this with the view it’s going to struggle moving much higher.”
The loonie, as the Canadian dollar is known for the image of the aquatic bird on the C$1 coin, rose 0.1 percent to C$1.0056 per U.S. dollar at 8:09 a.m. in Toronto. It matched an almost six-month low yesterday. One loonie buys 99.44 U.S. cents.
The 14-day relative strength index against the U.S. dollar has been below the 30 percent since Jan., a level that some traders see as a sign that an asset may be about to reverse direction. The measure is at 29.4 percent today.
To contact the reporter on this story: Ari Altstedter in Toronto at aaltstedter@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Dave Liedtka at dliedtka@bloomberg.net