The US dollar is showing some improvement against its cousin to the north, as USD/CAD is testing the 0.99 line. In Friday trading, the greenback has flexed some muscle, and is broadly stronger. The markets were in full action on Thursday, digesting a host of US key releases. There is less activity on Friday, but the markets will be keeping on eye on UoM Preliminary Consumer Sentiment, one of the most important consumer indicators. The lone Canadian release today is Manufacturing Sales.
The markets had their hands full on Thursday, as the US released a host of key data. Unsurprisingly, the data was a mix, which has been typical of recent US releases. However, market sentiment jumped as employment and housing numbers were outstanding, hitting multi-year highs. Unemployment Claims, which had looked weak earlier in January, bounced back with its best performance in five years, dropping to 331 thousand new claims. This easily beat the forecast of 369K. Housing Starts also were outstanding, improving to 0.95 million. This beat the forecast of 0.89M, and was the indicator's highest level since June 2008. Building Permits was not as spectacular, but also came within market expectations.
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