Canadian Dollar struggles to end bearish slide on Thursday

• The Canadian Dollar held near steady against the US Dollar on Thursday.
• Loonie markets have struggled to clamp down on bearish flows through November.
• Canadian PMI data did little to support an already-battered Canadian Dollar.

The Canadian Dollar (CAD) continues to hold on the weak side against the US Dollar (USD) on Thursday, finding the brakes enough to slow a near-term one-sided backslide, but not enough to stage a meaningful technical recovery.

Canadian Ivey Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) figures from October did little to support the Canadian Dollar, with the aggregated survey results showing an even sharper decline in month-to-month business operator sentiment than expected. Despite October's Ivey PMI landing firmly within recent volatility, the sharp downturn is a stark reminder for CAD-focused investors that economic activity north of the 49th parallel remains constrained.

Daily digest market movers: Canadian Dollar struggles against the tide

• The Canadian Dollar slowed its recent declines, but a bullish turnaround is not yet forthcoming.
• The Loonie has lost 1.81% top-to-bottom against the Greenback over the past six straight trading days.
• Canadian Ivey PMI survey results fell to 52.4, an even steeper contraction than the expected fall from 59.8 to 55.2. However, the figure is still well within recent volatility, and mostly serves as a soft reminder that the Canadian economy is struggling to find its feet in the face of steep tariff impacts.
• The US saw one of its worst non-Covid-pandemic Challenger Job Cuts reports ever recorded, showing a net 153K job cuts in October.
• Private data survey tends to be too volatile to share a meaningful correlation with official datasets from one release to the next; however, the steep job cuts figure is still facing additional scrutiny and shaking out investors who are lacking valuable official datasets during the longest US government shutdown in history.

Canadian Dollar price forecast

USD/CAD continues its strong advance, closing near 1.4120 after a one-sided bull run following a technical bounce from the 200-day Exponential Moving Average (EMA) near 1.3900. The pair has posted a steady sequence of higher highs and higher lows since late September, reflecting firm U.S. dollar demand against the Canadian dollar.

Momentum is stretched with the daily RSI hovering around 70, signaling overbought conditions that could invite short-term profit-taking. Initial support is seen near 1.4000, followed by 1.3900 at the 200-day EMA. Resistance sits at 1.4150, with the next key high at 1.4415.

Traders are watching whether the pair can hold above the 1.41 area to confirm continued bullish momentum into mid-November.

USD/CAD daily chart