Singapore and Canadian dollars hits three-month highs on data, pares gains on US numbers

Singapore's stronger than expected trade data earlier in Asia and Canadian consumer price inflation later in the American session helped their respective currencies strengthen to near three-month highs but the greenback has managed to reverse some of the losses.

The surprise rise in the US core CPI in March, despite lower than expected headline numbers, helped support the dollar, which was down across the board over the past few days thanks to dovish data and Fed comments.

USD/SGD dropped to 1.3411, its lowest since 28 January, from the previous close of 1.3498 before rebounding to 1.3460 after the US numbers were released.

Similarly, USD/CAD down to 1.2085, its lowest since late January, from the previous close of 1.2189, bounced back to 1.2160 on the US numbers.

As per data from Singapore, non-oil exports from the country rebounded 18.5% from a year earlier in March after falling 9.7% in February. Also, trade surplus of the country widened to 8,630 Singapore dollars from 5,180 Singapore dollars.

The Singapore currency has been strengthening against the greenback since the third week of last month, moving off a 4-1/2-year low of 1.3941. So far this month, the SGD is up almost 2%.

The Canadian dollar was helped by the consumer price data for March. The CPI increased 1.2% on a year-on-year basis from 1% in February. The BoC consumer price index was up 2.4% from 2.1%.

Canadian retail sales in February also saw a rebound to 1.7% from 1.4% the previous month, a separate release showed.

The core US consumer price index rose 1.8% from a year earlier in March, while the market consensus was for a repeat of February's 1.7%. Then the Reuters/Michigan consumer confidence too came in as a surprise at 95.9 for April from 93.0 in March beating market expectations of 94.0.

After the US releases, the USD index rebounded to 97.55 from the 11-day low of 97.0 hit earlier in the day.