USD/CAD falls to session lows amid surging oil prices, Canadian CPI in focus

   •  The USD fails to capitalize on the attempted intraday bounce. 
   •  Surging oil prices underpin Loonie and add to the selling pressure.
   •  Focus remains on today’s release of the latest Canadian CPI figures.

The USD/CAD pair finally broke down of its Asian/early European session consolidative phase and refreshed session lows, below mid-1.31000s in the last hour.

The pair extended previous session's sharp retracement slide from the vicinity of 100-day SMA barrier and traded with a negative bias for the second consecutive session, albeit has managed to hold its neck above three-week lows set at the beginning of this week. 

The Fed Chair Jerome Powell's overnight comments, reiterating that the central bank would stay patient on monetary policy, kept a lid on the US Dollar's attempted intraday bounce from multi-week lows and kept exerting some downward pressure.

Adding to this, a strong follow-through surge in crude oil prices provided an additional boost to the commodity-linked currency - Loonie and was seen as one of the key factors behind the pair's latest leg of a sudden drop of around 25-pips in the last hour or so.

The pair has now weakened back to the very important 200-day SMA support, which if broken should pave the way for a further downside, albeit investors' reluctant to place any aggressive bets ahead of today's release of Canadian CPI figures might help limit deeper losses.

Technical levels to watch