USD/CAD almost unchanged in light trade, close to one-month lows

US dollar remained little changed against its Canadian counterpart on Monday, still near one-month lows, following the third consecutive daily gain of the loonie, because the price of the crude oil, the largest Canadian export, stood above 100 USD per barrel for the 18th day in a row.

USD/CAD hit a session low at 1.0264 at 6:00 GMT, after which consolidation followed at 1.0275, dipping a mere 0.02% for the day. On July 25th the pair touched 1.0255, the lowest point since June 19th.

“Oil has been very, very bid, it’s been on an uptrend and has basically been correcting, so I think that’s been a positive support for the Canadian dollar,” said Sebastien Galy, a senior foreign-exchange strategist at Societe General SA, cited by Bloomberg.

Meanwhile, minutes ago it was reported that pending home sales in the United States recorded a drop in June, pulling back from a six-year high, reached due to the recent rise in mortgage rates. The indicator, gauging sales, decreased by 0.4% in June on a monthly basis, beating preliminary estimates of a greater drop, by 1.0%. However, the index jumped by 10.9% in June this year, compared to June 2012. A sale is considered pending, when a contract has been signed, but the transaction has not been completed yet, as usually this occurs one or two months later. NAR experts project that pending home sales will reach an annual level of 5.05 million units, with an annual level of housing starts of 0.968 million units during 2013.

Additionally, investors eyed the meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) on Wednesday, at which it will announce its decision on interest rates, one of the three major instruments to determine monetary policy.

Elsewhere, the loonie, as Canadian dollar is also known, traded higher versus the euro, with EUR/CAD cross down by 0.21% to 1.3618 at 14:42 GMT. GBP/CAD pair was also on negative territory, dropping 0.29% for the session to trade at 1.5767 at 14:44 GMT.