Canadian Dollar Mixed-to-Lower Despite Strong Rally of Crude

The Canadian dollar traded mixed-to-lower today. With lack of any macroeconomic releases during the Monday’s trading session, traders turned their attention towards future releases. The rally of crude oil prices had limited impact on the currency.
Prices for crude oil jumped more than 1% today as plenty of factors were supporting the commodity. Usually, the loonie follows moves of crude, but today that was not the case. By now, the currency has lost even those gains it had managed to achieve against few of its rivals.
The last week’s macroeconomic data was positive for the Canadian currency for the most part, including the faster-than-expected growth of Canada’s economy. The Ivey Purchasing Managers Index surged to 71.5 in April from 59.8 in March, well above the average forecast of 60.2. The only negative indicator was the trade balance, which showed an unexpected increase of a deficit.
For this week, few releases are scheduled. The most important of them should be employment data that comes out on Friday. Forecasters predicted an increase of employment by 19,500, while the unemployment rate should stay unchanged at 5.8%.
USD/CAD rallied from 1.2844 to 1.2894 as of 19:32 GMT today. EUR/CAD was down from 1.5366 to 1.5316 intraday but has returned to trade close to the opening level by now. CAD/JPY retreated from 84.90 to 84.58.

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