USD/CAD Forecast: Heavy Sell-Off Stalls Ahead of Multi-Week Support

USD/CAD Price, Chart, and Analysis

• The Loonie continues to benefit from a red-hot oil complex.
• The move lower is stalling ahead of strong support.

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The drift lower today in oil has taken the heat out of the recent Canadian dollar outperformance but the overall, and likely ongoing, strength in the oil market will continue to brace the Loonie in the weeks ahead. The Canadian dollar has also been boosted by the rise in short-term Canadian bond yields as the market prices in future interest rate hikes by the Bank of Canada.

The latest look at market expectations for further Canadian rate hikes show an unbroken series of rate increases all the way through to the end of the year, underpinning the currency further.

The daily USD/CAD chart shows the extent of the Canadian dollar’s outperformance against its neighbor over the last two weeks. The slide below all three simple moving averages suggests that this move may have more to go in the medium-term although support around 1.2450 will likely hold at least the first attempt. The CCI indicator shows the pair in oversold territory and this needs to be washed out before the pair can attempt to move lower. It is likely that the pair will consolidate around current levels before making the next move.

USDCAD Daily Price Chart March 25, 2022

Retail trader data show 68.90% of traders are net-long with the ratio of traders long to short at 2.22 to 1. The number of traders net-long is 5.02% lower than yesterday and 14.75% higher from last week, while the number of traders net-short is 3.66% lower than yesterday and 7.48% higher from last week.

We typically take a contrarian view to crowd sentiment, and the fact traders are net-long suggests USD/CAD prices may continue to fall.

Positioning is less net-long than yesterday but more net-long from last week. The combination of current sentiment and recent changes gives us a further mixed USD/CAD trading bias.

What is your view on theUSDCAD – bullish or bearish?? You can let us know via the form at the end of this piece or you can contact the author via Twitter @nickcawley1.