The Canadian loonie slumped against the U.S. Dollar Tuesday as oil prices fell following the announcement of an oil deal between Russia and some members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). It seemed like the Canadian dollar was managing to move away from its strong correlation to the price of energy but that was not the case.
The USD/CAD advanced 0.346 percent in the last 24 hours as both the U.S. and Canadian markets came back from holidays. The pair touched highs of 1.3912 after the price of oil dropped following the underwhelming announcement by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and Russia about a production agreement.
The fact that the four nations agreed on freezing current levels did not make much of a dent to the currency pair given that current production levels are still high and global supply continues to outstrip demand.
FOMC Minutes Today
The oil agreement pushed aside headlines of today’s release of the minutes of last week’s FMOC meeting. The futures markets have completely priced out any chance of a rate hike from the Fed for the entirety of 2016 and in the wake of continued equity weakness, analysts expect the FOMC minutes to sound dovish.
The testimony of Chair Yellen and comments from other Fed members pointed to the probability of a rate hike no earlier than June and the publication of the minutes today should add some insights into what policy members discussed as they held rates unchanged for the time being.