Investing.com - The U.S. dollar was lower against its Canadian counterpart on Monday, as Friday's strong Canadian economic growth data continued to support the nation's currency, although the greenback's losses were expected to remain limited.
USD/CAD hit 1.1373 during early U.S. trade, the session low; the pair subsequently consolidated at 1.1368, sliding 0.42%.
The pair was likely to find support at 1.1323, Friday's low and resistance at 1.1459, the session high.
The Canadian dollar strengthened after data on Friday showed that the country's gross domestic product rose 0.4% in September, in line with expectations, after a 0.1% contraction the previous month.
Year-on-year, Canada's economy grew 2.8% in the third quarter, beating expectations for a 2.1% expansion, after an upwardly revised growth rate of 3.6% in the three months to June.
Meanwhile, demand for the greenback remained supported as U.S. oil prices fell more than 2% on Monday, extending a broad based selloff in the wake of last Thursday’s decision by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries not to cut output quotas.
The loonie was higher against the euro, with EUR/CAD edging down 0.11% to 1.4199.
In the euro zone, data on Monday showed that the manufacturing purchasing managers’ index slowed to 50.1 from a preliminary reading of 50.4 last month, just barely above the 50 level separating growth from contraction.
Germany’s manufacturing PMI entered contraction territory for the first time in 17 months, falling to 49.5, as new orders fell at the fastest rate in nearly two years.
The French manufacturing PMI remained in contraction territory at 48.4, while Italy’s factory PMI came in at 49.0.
Later in the day, the U.S. Institute of Supply Management was to release data on manufacturing activity.