Investing.com - The U.S. dollar dropped to two-week lows against its Canadian counterpart on Monday, as dampened expectations for a U.S. rate hike before the end of the year weighed heavily on demand for the greenback.
USD/CAD hit 1.3064 during early U.S. trade, the pair's lowest since September 18; the pair subsequently consolidated at 1.3114, slipping 0.28%.
The pair was likely to find support at 1.3006, the low of September 18 and resistance at 1.3334, Friday's high.
The Labor Department reported on Friday that the U.S. economy added just 142,000 jobs last month, well below expectations of the 203,000 expected by economists.
August’s reading was revised down to 135,000, from the initial reported figure of 173,000.
Average hourly earnings were flat month-on-month and the labor force participation rate fell to just 62.4%, down from 62.6% in August. The unemployment rate was unchanged at 5.1%, in line with forecasts.
The report underlined fears that a slowdown in global economic growth has spread to the U.S. economy and prompted investors to push back expectations on the timing of an initial rate hike by the Federal Reserve to early 2016.
Meanwhile, the Canadian dollar was also supported by rising oil prices. Crude oil futures for November delivery were up 2.35% to $46.57 at the open of U.S. trading.
The loonie was higher against the euro, with EUR/CAD shedding 0.28% to 1.4710.
Research group Markit earlier reported that Germany's services purchasing managers' index slipped to 54.1 in September from 54.3 in August, while France's services PMI ticked up to 51.9 from 51.2.
Markit's services PMI for the entire euro zone fell to 53.7 last month from 54.0 in August.