Market outlook: US Dollar index hits one-week low ahead of key employment data release

Today's expected range for the Canadian Dollar against the major currencies:

US Dollar        1.3450-1.3550

Euro                1.4600-1.4700

Sterling           1.7050-1.7150

WTI Oil (opening level) $85.34

The US Dollar index hit a one-week low as the market gets set up for tomorrow's employment data, in a speech yesterday Fed Chair Powell reiterated that the Fed is still waiting for economic data before determining the pace of interest rate cuts and they will get a good look at the state of the economy tomorrow as the US economy is expected to have created 200K new jobs last month which would be a big drop from the February number. A very poor number may bring forward a rate cut and would see the Dollar get hit hard.

The Canadian Dollar picked up some good gains yesterday as USD.CAD dropped to trade at 1.3500 (0.7407) but it did lose ground against the other currencies so overall the Loonie did not perform as well against the rest of the world. Tomorrow we also get the Canadian Employment report and it is expected the economy created 25K new jobs which would be down on last month.

Stocks had a mixed day yesterday and are pointing towards a small gain on the opening today. The market gets an early look at the employment data today in the form of weekly jobless claims report and it is expected to show a small increase so that may lay the groundwork for a weaker employment report tomorrow. Currencies should range trade ahead of the data tomorrow.