USDCAD Overnight Range 1.3730-1.3776        

USDCAD drifted higher throughout the Asian and European sessions prior to pulling back just ahead of the New York open.  This morning’s US Housing Starts data was better than forecast and on another day may have had an effect on FX markets. Not so today. The highly anticipated FOMC meeting at 1100 PST, has seen to that.

It wasn’t quiet “all quiet on the Asian front”, but close. The RBA governor gave an interview and “guessed’ that AUDUSD would need to be lower. AUDUSD did move lower, but only slightly. NZDUSD rallied on better than expected current account data while USDJPY followed the Nikkei higher.

The US dollar was bought in Europe but remained well inside recent ranges. EURUSD traded sideways and ignored better-than-expected Eurozone CPI data.  GBPUSD fell despite strong employment gains due to soft earnings data.

Today’s the day that the FOMC announces the end to ZIRP (zero interest rate policy) and introduces BAZIRP (barely above zero interest rate policy).  A rate hike is pretty much a given leaving the timing of the next hike to be debated and that debate will rage for months.

 USDCAD technical outlook

The intraday USDCAD technicals are pretty much useless today since the FOMC decision should lead to wide price swings.  However, USDCAD is in a medium and short term uptrend and the break of major resistance in the 1.345070 area and again at 1.3630 project further gains to 1.4050. For today, strong USDCAD support is at 1.3710, 1.3610 and 1.35200.  Resistance is at 1.3780, 1.3840 and 1.3910

Forecasted Range for the day 1.3710-1.3810

Chart USDCAD hourly with support levels shownCAD 16TH DEC