The Canadian Dollar (CAD) exchange rate recovered some of yesterday’s losses to edge away from a four-year low following the release of a report which showed that new house prices in the country rose to a 20-month high.
According to Statistics Canada, new house prices rose by 0.3% in the first month of the year due to strong rises in property prices in the western prairie region of the country. The increase was better than the 0.1% rise which was forecast by economists, and was the largest gain recorded since May 2012.
The Canadian government, which has intervened in the mortgage market four times since 2008 to cool the sector, has long expressed concerns the housing market might overheat though it thinks a soft landing is more likely.
Overall, house price rises were recorded in five of the twenty one metropolitan regions, was unchanged in seven, and down in nine.
Earlier in the session the Euro (EUR) pushed higher to a two year high against the US Dollar and reached its better level since December against the Pound. Data out of Spain and France initially supported the currency but some of that support was weakened by weaker than expected GDP data out of Ireland.
The Emerald Isle’s economy contracted by -2.3% on a quarterly basis in the fourth quarter of last year, a figure well below the forecasted 1% rise expected by economists.
The single currency remains supported by expectations that the European Central Bank will refrain from introducing monetary easing measures as policy makers and the German Finance ministers dismissed the threat of deflation to the region.
Euro (EUR) Exchange Rates
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