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By: Michael Boutros, Sr. Technical Strategist
USD/CAD has rallied more than 4% from its August low and is on track for a fifth consecutive weekly gain, with the advance stalling at the 61.8% retracement of the entire 2025 decline. Canadian jobs data is the first test for that rally, with a modest gain of about 7,000 positions expected and the unemployment rate widely seen ticking up from 6.4% to 6.5%. The University of Michigan consumer survey follows straight after, and the U.S. consumer price index comes next as the main inflation read for the Federal Reserve. Together, the three releases set the backdrop for the next move in the Canadian dollar.
Michael Boutros, StoneX Media Senior Market Analyst, has more than 20 years of experience trading FX, commodities and equity indices and has hosted a weekly strategy webinar for over a decade. His approach reads markets across multiple time frames with a medium-term, event-driven focus, tracking how scheduled data and central bank expectations interact with the technical structure of currency pairs such as USD/CAD.
Canadian employment data leads the release sequence, with the market looking for a print of about 7,000 jobs and Canadian unemployment widely expected to rise from 6.4% to 6.5%. The University of Michigan consumer survey lands immediately after the Canadian jobs report, adding a U.S. inflation-expectations signal to the same session. "That's going to be critical to keep in mind the inflationary component of that," Boutros says of the survey. For USD/CAD, that places Canadian labor conditions and U.S. inflation expectations side by side, with the pair already holding just below a major Fibonacci retracement.
"A critical print as markets try to gauge what the path is for monetary policy, not just into the close of this year, but moving ahead," is how Boutros frames the U.S. consumer price index release. The U.S. consumer price index follows Federal Reserve minutes that confirmed a unanimous vote for the last rate increase. Boutros points to Federal Reserve members' "willingness to wait and see what the inflationary picture looks like" as the common thread across policymakers. Fed funds futures reflect that stance, having largely priced out a nearer-term hike while still assigning roughly 86% odds to at least another 25 basis points in December. Renewed volatility in the Middle East, with prices moving higher again, feeds directly into the inflation picture the Federal Reserve is watching.
--- Written by Frédéric Guétin, StoneX Media Producer
--- Expert: Michael Boutros, StoneX Media Senior Market Analyst
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USD/CAD has stalled at a major Fibonacci retracement after five straight weekly gains, and a run of Canadian and U.S. data now sets the backdrop. Canadian employment figures, the University of Michigan survey and the U.S. consumer price index all bear on the Federal Reserve rate path that frames the pair.
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