Investing.com - The U.S. dollar was almost unchanged against the Canadian dollar on Thursday following the release of mixed U.S. economic data as a selloff in Russian markets weighed on market sentiment.
USD/CAD was trading at 1.0739, off Wednesday’s almost one-month highs of 1.0792.
The pair was likely to find support at the 1.0700 level and resistance at 1.0800.
The greenback remained steady after the Labor Department reported that the number of people filing for initial jobless claims fell by 3,000 to 302,000 last week, compared to expectations for an increase to 310,000.
The upbeat data added to recent signs of an ongoing recovery in the labor market.
This was offset by a separate report showing that U.S. housing starts dropped by 9.3% last month to an annual unit rate of 893,000, down from 985,000 in May. Economists had forecast an increase of 0.9% to 1.018 million units.
The number of building permits issued last month fell by 4.2% to a seasonally adjusted 963,000 annual units from May’s total of 991,000, pointing to ongoing weakness in the housing sector.
Also Thursday, Statistics Canada reported that foreign investment in Canada increased by a seasonally adjusted C$21.43 billion in May, above expectations of C$14.23 billion. At the same time, Canadian investors added C$2.0 billion of foreign securities to their holdings.
Meanwhile, investors remained cautious amid fears that heightened tensions between Moscow and the West could hit the global economy after the U.S. announced a new swathe of sanctions against Moscow for supporting Ukrainian separatists.
The Canadian dollar remained under pressure after the Bank of Canada left rates on hold at 1.0% on Wednesday, and said the future direction of monetary policy would be data dependent.
The bank also said the recent increase in inflation was due to temporary factors rather than any change in domestic economic fundamentals.
Elsewhere, the loonie, as the Canadian dollar is also known, was almost unchanged against the euro, with EUR/CAD at 1.4532.