[LFX]

The Canadian dollar has had a rough ride recently, losing ground against most G10 currencies as risk sentiment has turned increasingly negative over the course of the week, with equities and energy prices drifting lower. USD/CAD climbed as high as 1.0685/90 today, its highest level since its big move lower ten days ago, on broad-based USD buying. And this is despite the lack of any CAD-specific
developments, or at least any that should cause CAD to weaken.

The most notable news over the last week was probably the existing home sales and price data for October, since the housing market has become such a hot topic with its near miraculous 2009 recovery. Flipping through just one of Canada’s major newspapers in recent days, you’ll see stories like “New home buyers take risks with low mortgage rate,” “Why the housing market is on fire even in a
recession,” and “Canada's housing rebound sparks fear of bubble.”

Looking at what caused so much commotion, the Canadian Real Estate Association reported that both sales and prices recorded fresh all-time highs in October, with the average resale home in Canada now selling for $340K. Markets have been watching the housing data extra closely, after the Bank of Canada’s most MPR cited the possibility that “Canadian households may increase their spending on consumption and residential investment more strongly than projected as the recovery takes hold” as an upside risk to the BoC’s inflation projections.

However, the new high in resale house prices does not mean that inflation is about to take off, forcing the BoC to raise rates before its end-Q2 conditional pledge expires. That’s because StatCan has chosen to include new house prices in the construction of CPI, not resale home prices. (The appropriateness of that choice is an entirely different topic for an entirely different publication. StatCan even acknowledges that “the treatment of owned accommodation is one of the most difficult problems encountered when constructing consumer price indexes.”) And looking at the dynamics between the two measures, it takes a persistent rise in resale prices before the new home price index catches up, if it ever catches up at all.

Looking at CAD over the next couple of weeks, some traders think that a rebound is in order, and that there’s scope for another stage in the rally in risky products towards the end of the year. Plus, the Canadian economic data has been picking up again over the last week or two. However, wait a little longer to see how far the recent equity shake-out runs before putting on any new long CAD trades.