Bank of Canada Maintains Status Quo: No Surprises for CAD

CAD: An unsurprising pause by the Bank of Canada today

USD/CAD printed the highest level since March yesterday, briefly breaking above the 1.3660 April high following another round of USD strengthening and generalised softness in pro-cyclical currencies. We don’t expect today’s Bank of Canada meeting to be a turning point for the loonie, as policymakers should take into account the recent weakness in growth and the cooling labour market and opt for a pause – here is our full preview.

The dovish move in market expectations has already happened and markets are expecting no change today, while a modest 9bp is left in the CAD OIS curve before year-end. This means that the downside risks for CAD from today’s pause should be limited, also because the BoC will likely want to avoid categorically closing the door to more tightening just yet.

The rise in USD/CAD in the past month has not been mirrored by a divergence in the USD/CAD short-term divergence of similar magnitude, and the pair is currently 2.5% overvalued according to our short-term fair value model. While a turn in US activity data likely remains necessary to pull the trigger on a USD correction and close the mis-valuation gap, we think that further USD/CAD gains will prove increasingly unsustainable. A retracement to the 1.3460 200-day MA is our preferred bias for September.