USD/CAD snaps 9-days of winning streak, retreats to 1.3700 on profit-taking
Having jumped closer to Tuesday's 14-month highs, the USD/CAD pair witnessed some profit taking slide and has now reversed all of its previous session gains to currently trade around the 1.3700 handle.
The pair snapped nine consecutive days of winning streak amid lack of follow through greenback buying interest. In fact, the key US Dollar Index has now drifted back below the 99.00 handle, despite of Wednesday's perceived hawkish Fed monetary policy statement, and prompted traders to take some profits off the table.
• Fed will hike but the dollar has peaked – SocGen
Meanwhile, considering the pair's recent up-surge of over 500-pips over past three week, today's downslide would only be seen as a corrective one within the well-established near-term up-trend.
Further downslide, however, seems limited amid persistent bearish sentiment surrounding oil markets, with WTI crude oil struggling near 5-week lows and seems unlikely to extend any immediate support to the commodity-linked currency - Loonie.
Traders now look forward to today's economic docket featuring the release of Canadian Trade Balance data, along with a slew of US macro data that includes - Weekly Jobless Claims, Trade Balance, Prelim Nonfarm Productivity and Unit Labor Costs, followed by Factory Orders, for some fresh impetus.
Technical levels to watch
Immediate support is pegged near 1.3680-75 horizontal level, below which the pair is likely to extend the profit-taking slide towards 1.3630-25 intermediate support ahead of the 1.3600 handle.
On the flip side, 1.3730 level now becomes immediate hurdle, which if cleared should lift the pair back towards multi-month highs resistance near 1.3750-60 band before eventually aiming towards reclaiming the 1.3800 handle for the first time since Feb. 2016.