The USD/CAD pair rose during the session on Thursday, finally smashing through the 1.04 handle, an area that I referenced as a trigger to start buying the US dollar over the Canadian dollar. That being the case, we have to watch the oil markets, but it does look like the Canadian dollar is going to weaken quite a bit. Obviously, oil markets could change that but it does not look like that's going to happen anytime soon. I believe this opens the door to the 1.05 level, and possibly higher although I do expect quite a bit of noise and resistance in that general vicinity.
As for selling is concerned, I think it's going to be almost impossible as the US dollar seems to be beating up on the Canadian dollar fairly well. This makes sense of course though because the Canadians export 85% of their yearly exports down to the Americans. If the American employment numbers are fairly poor, as they have been recently, it does not bode well for Canadian exports at all.
Nonfarm payroll will continue to be the most important economic indicator for this market.
The nonfarm payroll report out of United States will continue to be the biggest driver of this market in my opinion. As long as there are concerns about employment in the US, it's almost impossible to think the Canadian exports do well. Because of this, I believe that this market may be getting ready to make an even larger move than it is presently showing. However, we would have to get above the 1.06 level in order to do that, which could open the door to the 1.10 level over time.
With that being said, expect this market to be volatile, choppy, and a general pain to trade most of the time as it typically will do. This pair has a long history of going sideways for several months at a time, and then suddenly shooting up or down in one direction rapidly. Be aware the fact that you can certainly take off in one direction or another, at moment’s notice.
