Forex: USD/CAD bounces from 0.9850 after Canada and US data

FXstreet.com (Barcelona) - The USDCAD is in decline today as commodity currencies, mainly the AUD and NZD, cheer surprisingly strong China trade data, with exports soaring from 2.9% to 14.1% in December (consensus of 4.0%) and imports jumping from 0% to 6% (consensus of 3%). China trade surplus moved from 19.6B to 31.6B.

The pair came off of 0.9880 in early Asian hours and kept declining until finding its low at 0.9850 ahead of Canada housing data and US jobless claims. Canada building permits disappointed, falling -17.9% in November (consensus of -7.6%) and more than retracing 15.9% gains in the prior month. Canada new housing prices eased from 2.4% to 2.2% (YoY) in November, with a monthly rise of 0.1%, below 0.2% market consensus. US initial jobless claims rose from 367K to 371K (consensus of 365K), while continuing claims eased from 3.236M to 3.109M (consensus of 3.230M).

The USDCAD bounced to 0.9860/65 zone. "The short-term charts reflect steady range trading in funds since late November on the one hand and the fact that the recent USD losses are putting some quite important support points under pressure on the other", they wrote, favoring more range trading at the margin, while short-term studies are slightly bearish biased, suggesting key support (0.9825 in our opinion) may come under more pressure near-term.