The USD/CAD currency pair on Thursday pulled back off the session highs of about 1.3438 to trade at about 1.3402. The currency pair appears to be trading within a gently ascending channel formation in the 60-minute chart.

Thursday’s late pullback pushed the currency pair closer to the 100-hour moving average line. The pullback prevented the pair from advancing into the overbought levels of the 14-hour RSI.

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 consumer price index for December outperformed the expected (MoM) change of 0.2% with a change of 0.3%. The (YoY) equivalent also beat the estimate of 3.2% with a change of 3.4%. On the other hand, the consumer price index ex-food and energy for the period outshone the forecasted (YoY) change of 3.8% with a change of 3.9%, while the (MoM) equivalent was in line with the estimate of 0.3%.

Elsewhere, the initial jobless claims for the week ending December 5 outperformed the expectation of 210k with a claim count of 202k. The continuing claims for the preceding week also beat 1.871 million with a tally of 1.834 million. In Canada, the international merchandise trade for November missed the expectation of $2 billion with a balance of $1.57 billion. Building permits for November also missed the expected (MoM) change of -1.7% with a change of -3.9%.

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

Technically, the USD/CAD currency pair appears to be trading within an ascending channel formation in the 60-minute chart. However, the pair has recently pulled back to avoid rallying into overbought conditions.

Therefore, the bears will be targeting extended pullbacks at about 1.3370 or lower at 1.3339. On the other hand, the bulls will look to extend the current run of gains toward 1.3438 or higher to 1.3467.

USD/CAD Technical Analysis (the Daily Chart)

In the daily chart, the USD/CAD currency pair appears to be trading within a sharply ascending channel formation. The 14-day RSI also seems to support a long-term bullish bias after bouncing back to avoid dropping into oversold conditions.

Therefore, the bulls will be targeting extended rebounds at about 1.3509 or higher at 1.3620. On the other hand, the bears will look to ride the current wave of declines toward 1.3285 or lower to 1.3178.