USD/CAD struggles to gain positive traction, but holds above 1.3400 handle

Haresh Menghani FXStreet

• A goodish pickup in the US bond yields extends some support to the US Dollar.
• Positive crude oil prices underpin Loonie and partly offset the supporting factor.
• Traders now eye US monthly retail sales data for some meaningful trading impetus.

The USD/CAD pair struggled to build on its attempted intraday up-move and is currently placed in the neutral territory, albeit managed to hold well Friday's swing low.

The pair witnessed some profit-taking/long-unwinding trade on Friday in reaction to the diverging monthly jobs report from the US and Canada. The US Dollar lost some ground after the latest US monthly jobs report showed that the economy added only 20K new jobs in February.

Meanwhile, the commodity-linked currency - Loonie got an additional boost in wake of upbeat domestic employment details, though a sharp intraday slide in crude oil prices partly offset the negative factors and helped limit deeper losses for the major.

With investors looking past Friday's macro data, a combination of opposing forces failed to provide any meaningful impetus and led to a subdued/range-bound price action through the early European session on the first trading day of the week.

A goodish pickup in the US Treasury bond yields underpinned demand for the greenback and extended some support/provided a minor lift to the major. Meanwhile, oil prices held steady with modest intraday gains of 0.70% and kept a lid on any meaningful up-move.

Moving ahead, today's US economic docket, highlighting the release of monthly retail sales data, will now be looked upon for some meaningful impetus/short-term trading opportunities later during the early North-American session.

Technical levels to watch

Immediate support is pegged near the 1.3400 handle, below which the corrective slide could further get extended towards the 1.3370 horizontal support before the pair eventually drops to test the 1.3310-1.3300 support area. On the flip side, the 1.3440 area now seems to have emerged as an immediate resistance, which if cleared now seems to set the stage for further near-term up-move towards conquering the key 1.3500 psychological mark.

Author

Haresh Menghani

FXStreet

Haresh Menghani is a detail-oriented professional with 10+ years of extensive experience in analysing the global financial markets.

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