AUDCAD in focus ahead of Aussie retail sales and Canadian jobs

For obvious reasons, Friday’s main focus will be on the US nonfarm payrolls report. As a result, jobs data from the other North American nation, which will be released at the same time, will be overshadowed. But this need not be the case, as the Canadian dollar could possibly present better trading opportunities than the US dollar. That being said, if the Canadian dollar is going to move sharply, we will the nation’s jobs report to show significant deviation from the +15,300 expectations for the headline figure. With the Bank of Canada recently putting its hawkish stance on a hold again, the downbeat CAD does really need a big jobs number otherwise we could see further declines.

Given the simultaneous release of jobs data from both North American nations tomorrow, it is very difficult to prepare for a trade setup on the USD/CAD. Instead, speculators may wish to pair the Canadian dollar against another currency to maximise the impact of the Canadian data release. With Australia releasing its own retail sales overnight, the AUD/CAD could be either overbought or oversold by the time the Canadian data is published. Thus, speculators may even be able to fade that potential move ahead of the Canadian data release, as an alternative entry method to a breakout strategy. Australian retail sales are meanwhile expected to have bounced back 0.4% month-over-month in September following a decline of 0.6% the month before.

From a technical point of view, while the break of the bearish trend line on the AUD/CAD is clearly bullish, the fact that price remains below the 200-day average can be considered bearish. But the 200-day average is flat and is not pointing to any particular direction. This is a typical characteristic of side-ways markets. Indeed, the AUD/CAD is stuck in a wide range, making it an ideal candidate to trade from one level to the next, especially around news events. With that in mind, the first level of support level is at 0.9870, which had been resistance in recent trade. The next level down is at 0.9820, which needs to hold otherwise a drop towards the key 0.9700 handle would most likely be the outcome. Meanwhile on the upside, the next level of resistance comes in around the 0.9950 area, followed by parity, where the 200-day average is also residing. 

Source: eSignal and FOREX.com.