Loonie Looks Stronger, Employment Data May Weaken Currency

The Canadian dollar gained today as Forex traders showed risk appetite on signs that the situation in Greece is improving and some positive data from the United States. The gains of the currency were limited as tomorrow’s employment data is expected to be rather poor.
European politicians confirmed that Greece is receiving a next round of bailout. There are speculations that the most-indebted European country made progress in forming a new government. US federal budged had its first surplus since 2008. Most news was good today and that translated
into demand for riskier assets. Both the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index and MSCI World Index of stocks were up 0.5 percent today.

Canada’s currency profited from the general positive sentiment on the FX market, but is weighed down by poor fundamental outlook for the North American nation itself. Canada’s employment growth is expected to be a meager 10,100 in April, compared to the March 82,300. The unemployment rate is expected to rise from 7.2 percent to 7.3 percent. The employment report from Statistics Canada will be released tomorrow.

USD/CAD was down from 1.0025 to 1.0019 as of 21:00 GMT today, while the intraday low was 0.9975. CAD/JPY climbed from 79.37 to 79.72. EUR/CAD was flat at 1.2959.

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