Canadian dollar slides as jobs data boosts jumbo rate cut bets

TORONTO, Dec 6 (Reuters) – The Canadian dollar weakened against its U.S. counterpart on Friday, approaching a recent 4-1/2-year low, as a jump in Canada’s unemployment rate bolstered expectations for another outsized interest rate cut next week from the Bank of Canada.

The loonie was trading 0.8% lower at 1.4140 to the U.S. dollar, or 70.72 U.S. cents, stopping just short of the 1.4177 level it touched on Nov. 26, which was its weakest since April 2020.

“A larger-than-forecast rise in the Canadian unemployment rate to 6.8% in November, leaves the CAD trading defensively into the end of the week,” Shaun Osborne, chief currency strategist at Scotiabank, said in a note.

Canada had 1.5 million unemployed people in November, propelling its jobless rate to a near-eight-year high outside of the pandemic era of 6.8%.

Investors see a roughly 80% chance of a half-percentage-point rate cut from the BoC on Dec. 11, up from 58% before the data. It follows a cut of that magnitude in October.

“A weak exchange rate has helped loosen financial conditions significantly over the past year but policymakers have not stepped in the way of more aggressive easing expectations,” Osborne said.

The threat of U.S. tariffs on Canadian imports has added to downside risk for the loonie, analysts say in a Reuters poll.

The U.S. dollar (.DXY), opens new tab rose against a basket of major currencies as U.S. nonfarm payrolls increased by 227,000 last month, while the price of oil, one of Canada’s major exports, was trading 1.4% lower at $67.33 a barrel.

The Canadian 10-year yield was down 8.6 basis points at 2.993%, after earlier touching its weakest level since Oct. 2 at 2.978%.
It fell 6.4 basis points further below its U.S. equivalent to a gap of 116.7 basis points, the widest gap in LSEG data going back to 1994.

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Reporting by Fergal Smith; editing by Jonathan Oatis