The greenback and the loonie have been dancing a sideways tango over the last 24 hours with nothing much to show for either of their efforts.
There were no major economic reports out of Canada today and with exception to a very positive US Pending Home Sales report, every other indicator was pretty much in line with expectations. Weekly initial unemployment claims dropped slightly to a reading of 472K, still an ugly number but not far off expectations. Non-Farm productivity fell 1.8% and Unit Labor Costs grew by 1.1%. Factory Orders missed expectations but still managed to improve to a meager growth reading of 0.1%. Pending Home Sales provided about the only real surprise today with a relatively large swing up to 5.2% growth. After the terrible run of housing related data in August, this was certainly a pleasant surprise. Unfortunately though, I think this is probably more of an anomaly rather than the start of a sustainable trend, and therefore the markets didn't really react that much to the improvement. Not even Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s comments moved the market today as investors sit and wait in anticipation of tomorrow’s all-important BLS Non-farm payroll data.
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