Investing.com - The dollar climbed to two-week highs against its Canadian counterpart on Thursday, boosted by strong U.S. data and the Federal Reserve’s decision to raise interest rates for the first time in a year.
USD/CAD hit 1.3364 during early U.S. trade, the pair’s highest since December 1; the pair subsequently consolidated at 1.3382, climbing 0.78%.
The pair was likely to find support at 1.3250, the low of December 2 and resistance at 1.3442, the high of December 1.
The greenback found broad support after the Fed concluded its policy meeting on Wednesday by raising interest rates by 25 basis points and projected three more rate hikes for 2017.
The dollar was also boosted after the U.S. Labor Department reported on Thursday that initial jobless claims in the week ending December 10 fell to 254,000 from the previous week’s total of 258,000.
Analysts had expected jobless claims to total 255,000 last week.
A separate report showed that the U.S. consumer price index rose 0.2% last month, in line with expectations. Year-on-year, consumer prices increased by 1.7%.
In addition, the Philly Fed manufacturing index climbed to a two-year high of 21.5 this month from 7.6 in November, blowing past expectations for a reading of 9.0.
In Canada, official data showed that manufacturing sales fell 0.8% in October, compared to expectations for a 0.4% rise and after an uptick of 0.3% the previous month.
The commodity-related Canadian dollar was also affected by a drop in oil prices on Thursday.
The loonie was fractionally higher against the euro, with EUR/CAD easing 0.08% to 1.3976.