Canadian Dollar Falls As Oil Prices Slide, U.S. Tariff Threats

(RTTNews) - The Canadian dollar weakened against other major currencies in the Asian session on Wednesday amid crude oil prices slide, as concerns about demand and oversupply in the market weighed and pushed the commodity's prices to the lowest level in about 11 weeks.

West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for April settled lower by $1.77 or at $68.93 a barrel.

Worries about the potential impact of imminent tariffs by Trump administration on global economic growth limited the market's upside.

Fresh U.S. trade measures against China and U.S. President Donald Trump's comments that tariffs on Canada and Mexico "will go forward" rekindled fears of a global trade war. Trump also stressed more broadly that his intended "reciprocal" tariffs were on schedule to begin as soon as April.

Data showing a deterioration in U.S. consumer confidence in February fueled bets on U.S. Fed interest rate cuts this year.

In the Asian trading today, the Canadian dollar fell to a 2-week low of 1.4333 against the U.S. dollar, from yesterday's closing value of 1.4302. The loonie is likely to find support around the 1.45 region.

Against the yen and the euro, the loonie slipped to 103.95 and 1.5054 from Tuesday's closing quotes of 104.23 and 1.5046, respectively. If the loonie extends its downtrend, it is likely to find support around 102.00 against the yen and 1.52 against the euro.

Meanwhile, the loonie slightly rose to 0.9055 against the Australian dollar from a recent low of 0.9085 and held steady thereafter.

Looking ahead, the market research group GfK releases Germany's consumer sentiment survey results for March in the pre-European session at 2:00 am ET. The forward-looking consumer sentiment index is forecast to improve to -21.6 in March from -22.4 in February.

In the New York session, Canada wholesale data for January, U.S. MBA mortgage approvals data, U.S. new home sales data for January and U.S. EIA crude oil data are slated for release.