The USD/CAD currency pair on Thursday pulled back off the current 3-day highs of about 1.3170 to trade at about 1.3130. This came despite an impressive round of US jobless claims data. The currency pair continues to trade within a descending channel in the 60-min chart.

It has now fallen below both the 100-hour and the 200-hour SMA lines. It remains centrally positioned in the 14-hour RSI. The current downward movement could continue through next week.

USD/CAD Fundamentals Overview 

From a fundamental perspective, the USD/CAD currency pair is trading at the back of a relatively busy period in the US market. On Thursday, the US initial jobless claims for the week ending Oct. 17 beat the expectation of 860k claims with 787k. The continuing claims for the [receding week also came in better than expected at 8.373M claims versus the expectation of 9.5 million. The US existing home sales change for September also beat the (MoM) expectation of 5% change with a change of 9.4%. Home sales for the period came in at 6.54M versus the (MoM) expectation of 6.3M. 

Earlier in the week, the US building permits for September beat the (MoM) expectation of 1.52M with 1.553M. On the other hand, US housing starts for the period that failed to match the expected starts tally of 1.457M with 1.415M. In Canada, the BoC core Consumer Price Index for September beat the expected (YoY) change of 0.7% with 1%. On the other hand, retail sales for August came short of 1.1% change with a (MoM) change of 0.4%. 

USD/CAD Technical Analysis (the 60-min Chart)

Technically, the USD/CAD currency pair on Thursday continued to trade within a descending channel in the 60-min chart. This indicates a short-term bearish bias in the market sentiment. 

The bulls will be targeting short-term rebound profits at around 1.3164 or higher at 1.3204. On the other hand, the bears will look to pounce on pullback profits at around 1.3103 or lower at 1.3061.

USD/CAD Technical Analysis (the Daily Chart)

In the daily chart, the USD/CAD currency pair appears to be trading within a sharply descending channel. This indicates a strong long-term bearish bias in the market sentiment.

The bears will be looking to retain long-term control by targeting profits at around 1.2946 or lower at 1.2677. On the other hand, the bulls will target profits at 76.40% and 61.80% fib levels at 1.3357 and 1.3607, respectively.