The jobless rate, on an uptrend over the past year, has risen 1.3 percentage points since April 2023 and is now the highest since 6.5% unemployment in January 2022, Statistics Canada data showed. Excluding the coronavirus pandemic years, unemployment was last as high as 6.4% in October 2017.
The dollar traded near two-week lows as traders returned from the U.S. Independence Day holiday ahead of the release of the widely-watched monthly official jobs report, looking for more cues on when the Federal Reserve will start cutting interest rates.
Crude prices were headed for a fourth week of strong gains, amid expectations that oil markets will tighten further in the coming months, although trading volumes were muted on account of the U.S. market holiday on Thursday.
Binance exchange has once again conducted the periodic purging of its system through specific token delisting. As showcased in its latest announcement, the latest trading pairs to leave the platform primarily feature Bitcoin.
Equity markets were closed for the Independence day holiday on Thursday, but the Wall Street indexes were sitting at record highs hit earlier this week as a swathe of soft economic readings pushed up bets that the Federal Reserve will begin cutting interest rates by September.
