The Canadian dollar CADUSD was barely changed against its U.S. counterpart on Monday as domestic data showed further weakness in the services economy and ahead of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump.
The loonie was trading at 1.3815 per U.S. dollar, or 72.39 U.S. cents, after trading in a range of 1.3787 to 1.3829.
The currency touched nearly a seven-month intraday high of 1.3757 on Friday.
Carney has said the focus of Tuesday’s “comprehensive set of meetings” with Trump and senior officials would be on immediate trade pressures, such as tariffs, and the long-term future.
“It’s not clear that Trump would want to make any major announcements or concessions or anything like that, so I don’t expect much tomorrow, but anything could happen,” said Aaron Hurd, senior portfolio manager in the currency group at State Street Global Advisors.
“Clearly, this tariff uncertainty is going to continue to weigh on consumer demand, is going to continue to weigh on CAPEX (capital expenditures) and business spending, and that puts the Canadian economy in a tough spot.”
Canada’s services economy contracted for a fifth straight month in April as uncertainty around trade policy and last week’s Canadian general election weighed on activity, S&P Global’s Canada services PMI data showed.
The headline Business Activity Index was at 41.5 last month, edging up from nearly a five-year low of 41.2 in March but well below the 50.0 no-change mark that separates growth from contraction. The price of oil, one of Canada’s major exports, settled nearly 2% lower at $57.13 a barrel after OPEC+ decided to expedite its output hikes.
The Canadian 10-year yield was little changed at 3.185%. It was trading 2.8 basis points further below the U.S. equivalent at a gap of roughly 116 basis points.