USD/CAD: Canadian GDP

The US Dollar appreciated against the Canadian Dollar, following the Canadian GDP data release on Friday at 12:30 GMT. The USD/CAD exchange currency rate gained 24 pips or 0.18% right after the release. The Greenback continued trading at the 1.3530 level against the Canadian Dollar.

Statistics Canada released the Canadian GDP data, which came out better-than-expected of 0.5% compared with forecast of 0.4%.

According to the official release: "Growth in real GDP was driven by a 0.9% increase in household spending and an 8.7% rise in business investment in machinery and equipment. These increases were moderated by a 1.0% decline in exports, coupled with a 1.9% increase in imports. Additionally, investment in housing continued to decline, down 1.6% in the first quarter. Businesses accumulated $16.1 billion of non-farm inventories in the first quarter, pushing the economy-wide stock-to-sales ratio up from 0.838 in the fourth quarter of 2018 to 0.846. Accumulation of cannabis stocks largely contributed to the $1.7 billion increase in farm inventories."