USD/CAD bounces off lows, still well offered around 1.30 mark

The USD remained under intense selling pressure on Thursday, with the USD/CAD pair dropping to session low level of 1.2980 before retracing few pips.

Currently hovering around 1.30 psychological mark, receding hopes of faster Fed rate-hike moves in 2017 continues to undermine the greenback, with the key US Dollar Index plunging to the lowest level since mid-November, and has been a key driver of the pair's downslide on Thursday.

Adding to this, a fresh leg of up-move in crude oil prices, with WTI crude oil comfortably holding above $54.00/barrel mark, is also supporting the commodity-linked currency - Loonie, and collaborating to the pair's offered tone.

The pair, however, has managed to defend Tuesday's multi-month lows support as investors remained a bit cautious ahead of Friday's big event risk, the release of keenly watched NFP data, which could provide some immediate respite to the USD bulls.

In the meantime, today's US economic docket, featuring the release of usual weekly jobless claims, prelim nonfarm productivity / unit labor cost, would be looked upon to grab some short-term trading opportunities.

Technical outlook

Carol Harmer, Founder at charmertradingacademy.com notes, "I think 1.2980 is going to be a short term barrier....I do think we go lower and 1.28 would be my short term objective....followed by 1.2650.....Now the measured target off the top formation on Usd/Cad is 1.2440....any break back above 1.3140 and I am not looking to sell any more I am looking to buy..."