Canadian Dollar Spikes Higher On Upbeat Jobs Data

The Canadian dollar strengthened against its major counterparts in the European session on Friday, as a data showed that the economy added more jobs than forecast in September, while the jobless rate fell.

Data from Statistics Canada showed that employment rose by 53,700 jobs in September compared to economist estimates for an increase of about 5,000 jobs.

That follows an increase of 81,100 jobs in August.

The unemployment rate fell to 5.5 percent in September from 5.7 percent in August. Economists had expected the unemployment rate to remain unchanged.

The loonie traded mixed against its major counterparts in the Asian session. While it dropped against the aussie and the euro, it held steady against the greenback and the yen.

The loonie spiked up to more than a 4-week high of 82.04 against the yen, up from Thursday's closing value of 81.18. If the loonie rises further, 83.5 is possibly seen as its next resistance level.

The loonie that ended Thursday's trading at 1.4620 against the euro moved up to a 2-day high of 1.4587. The next possible resistance for the loonie is seen around the 1.44 level.

Final data from Destatis showed that Germany's consumer price inflation slowed as initially estimated in September to the lowest since early 2018.

Consumer price inflation slowed to 1.2 percent in September from 1.4 percent in August. This was the lowest rate since February 2018, when the rate was 1.1 percent.

After dropping to 1.3300 against the greenback in the Asian session, the loonie reversed direction, rising to a 9-day high of 1.3206. The loonie is likely to locate resistance around the 1.30 region.

The loonie edged up to 0.8974 against the aussie, following a new 3-week high of 0.9037 seen at 8:00 am ET. The loonie is seen testing resistance around the 0.88 mark.

Looking ahead, University of Michigan's U.S. consumer sentiment index for October is due in the New York session.