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The Canadian Dollar strengthened into the weekend, helped by an above-consensus Canadian labour market report.
The Pound to Canadian Dollar exchange rate (GBPCAD) fell to 1.7775 and extended its weekly decline to 1.25% after Statistics Canada said the country added 76K jobs in January.
This was below December's 91K but well above consensus expectations for 25K, which explains the positive CAD reaction.
"Employment growth remained hot in Canada in January," says Andrew Grantham, an economist at CIBC Capital Markets.
Investors think the Bank of Canada will cut interest rates further in the coming months - which tends to weigh on CAD - amidst U.S. import tariff uncertainty, but these data could give the Bank reason to consider a pause.
Certainly, the CAD rally suggests some in the market see it that way.
Bolstering a reappraisal is a fall in the unemployment rate to 6.6% from 6.7%m, defying expectations for a rise to 6.8%, and average hourly earnings remain in the inflationary territory at 3.7% y/y.
Despite this, CIBC's Grantham warns, "tougher tests are to come as trade uncertainty has risen since this survey was conducted."
"Even after the improvement seen during the past two months, the unemployment rate is still only just back to where it stood in October and is still consistent with a labour market with plenty of slack. We continue to think that even lower interest rates will be needed for the economy to fully absorb that slack," he explains.
The Canadian Dollar's weekly advance against the Pound, Dollar and other major currencies comes as investors lower the odds of a damaging outcome of the U.S.-Canada tariff tensions, with both countries now sat down at the negotiating table.
According to analysts at TD Bank, the rally in CAD could yet be premature as the tariff saga is far from over.
"Markets have been a bit too quick and optimistic in pricing out tariff premia in USDCAD which seems premature. Tariffs are a means to an end, even if not the end itself," says Mark McCormick, Head of FX and EM Strategy at TD Securities.
He says tariffs, even if bargaining chips, might need to be implemented for some period of time to bring Canada to the negotiating table.
Jayati Bharadwaj, Global FX Strategist at TD Securities, says the reality is CAD needs to fall further. "Our quant macro framework MRSI now assigns a large negative trading weight to CAD," she says.
TD Securities is long USD/CAD in anticipation of further weakness.