The Euro to Canadian Dollar exchange rate trimmed declines during the North American session due to less-than-impressive Canadian employment figures.
However, the Euro remained broadly softer as a result of the comments made by European Central Bank President Mario Draghi yesterday.
As economist Paul Robson observed; ‘It’s not often the European Central Bank precommits to a rate cut or a change in policy at an upcoming meeting. It was quite aggressive talk. It’s pretty clear what the market made of it. It’s not much of a surprise to see the Euro heading lower.’
The Euro is currently poised to record a five-day decline of 0.6 per cent against the US Dollar and is also heading for a weekly drop against the Yen.
However, the EUR/CAD pairing recovered losses on Friday as a drop in Canadian employment took investors by surprise.
Economists had expected the Canadian economy to add 13,500 positions in April after the whopping 42,900 gain in March.
However, the nation actually lost 28,900 jobs as the number of people in full time employment slid by 30,900 and the amount of people in part time work increased by 2,000.
Canada’s participation rate edged from 66.2 per cent to 66.1 per cent rather than rising to 66.3 per cent as forecast.
The unemployment rate held at 6.9 per cent, in line with expectations.
The decline in employment was the second in three months and is reflective of Canada’s patchy economic performance.
According to Statistics Canada (who compiled the report) ‘There has been little overall employment growth in Canada since August 2013’.
The Canadian Dollar pared yesterday’s gains after the report was published, edging lower against the US Dollar, Euro and Pound.
Next week the main Canadian reports to be aware of include manufacturing shipments figures and existing home sales data.
However, fluctuations in the Euro to CAD pairing are more likely to occur as a result of Eurozone/German inflation and growth figures.
Unless the inflation data for the currency bloc shows a considerably stronger-than-forecast increase in prices, the shadow of additional ECB stimulus is likely to keep the Euro under pressure in the weeks ahead.
Euro (EUR) Exchange Rates
[table width=”100%” colwidth=”50|50|50|50|50″ colalign=”left|left|left|left|left”]
Currency, ,Currency,Rate ,
Euro,
,US Dollar,1.3776,
Euro,,British Pound,0.8180,
Euro,,Australian Dollar,1.4713,
Euro,,New Zealand Dollar,1.6001, ,Canadian Dollar,1.5018 ,
[/table]
