Canadian dollar, Japanese yen and Australian dollar ended week on weak footing

The Canadian dollar was trading on a weak footing throughout the day on Friday, before rebounding marginally in the afternoon. It was given some relief in the form of better-than-forecast inflation data, but these were accompanied by relatively weak retails sales, which prevented the currency from logging further gains. The Japanese yen also struggled. The release of monetary policy meeting minutes from the Bank of Japan contained dovish comments from policy-makers, which triggered a sell-off throughout Friday morning. Like the Canadian dollar, some of these losses were pared back throughout the afternoon. After a strong few weeks, the Australian dollar hit its first weekly decline in over a month last week. Friday’s weakness was a response to forecasts from Deutsche Bank, which suggest the currency could devalue by 20% in the next 2 years.

Looking forward to this week, we have business confidence and trade balance figures out of New Zealand, capital expenditure data out of Australia, and GDP figures out of Canada. Eyes will also be on the G20 summit, which commenced on Saturday.

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