Weekly macro process · evidence integration · 6C

6C Fundamental Analysis: A Weekly Evidence Workflow

By Kyle ParrottUpdated August 13, 2026

Imagine Canadian inflation cools, employment stays firm, crude oil rallies, and U.S. yields rise in the same week. None of those facts gets automatic control of 6C. The job of fundamental analysis is to compare each development with the prior, trace it through Canadian and U.S. policy expectations, and preserve more than one outcome until price and cross-market evidence narrow the field.

Build the ledger Open the worksheet

Cadence: Weekly + event updates
Unit: Evidence change
Core lens: Canada versus U.S.
Output: Conditional branches

Mixed weekDo not count headlines

priornew evidencerelative repricing

Policy, growth, trade, energy, and risk evidence can reinforce or offset one another. Weight comes from mechanism and confirmation, not the number of bullish-looking rows.

Branches before targetsReview after outcomes

What the work produces

Fundamental Analysis Is an Updating Discipline, Not a List of Drivers

A driver list says inflation, jobs, central banks, oil, and risk sentiment matter. A useful process says what was known, what changed, which currency side changed more, what would confirm the interpretation, and what would invalidate it. The second version can be audited. The first can explain almost any chart after the move.

Permissible conclusion

A conditional macro branch

For example: if Canadian policy pricing rises relative to U.S. pricing and 6C holds above a predeclared market level with acceptable liquidity, evidence is consistent with the stronger-CAD branch. This is an inference and possible application, not an established causal finding.

Prohibited shortcut

One fact, one arrow

"Oil up means 6C up" or "strong jobs mean 6C up" ignores expectations, the U.S. side, the source of the shock, and what was already positioned. These statements can fail even when the underlying economic channel is real.

Instrument orientation

6C is a dated CME future quoted in U.S. dollars per Canadian dollar; a higher price means a stronger CAD against USD. Keep basis and contract roll separate from macro interpretation. Use 6C tick size, tick value, and contract specifications for current mechanics rather than copying numbers into every analysis page.

Freeze the baseline

Start Each Week With a Dated Prior

Write the prior before opening the week's outcomes. A defensible prior is not a prediction that 6C must rise or fall. It is a compact record of current evidence, market expectations, known catalysts, and uncertainty.

The Sunday or pre-week snapshot

Record the active 6C contract, current roll status, prior weekly close, selected Canadian and U.S. policy-pricing measures, the next official releases, recent Bank of Canada and Federal Reserve communication, the latest Canadian inflation/labor/growth/trade observations, an energy benchmark, and visible market-quality conditions. Timestamp every observation and preserve source vintage.

Cutoff: Declared time
Sources: Primary first
Unknowns: Kept explicit
Direction: Not required

Field	What belongs there	What does not
Established fact	Official released value, policy text, calendar time, or verified market observation	A forecast, narrative label, or unsourced social-media claim
Prior	Consensus range, market-implied path, and previous data vintage available at cutoff	The expectation reconstructed after seeing the outcome
Mechanism	The causal channel that could connect the evidence to CAD/USD	A claim that the channel must dominate this episode
Inference	Your conditional reading, confidence, and rival explanations	A statement presented as if an official source made it
Possible application	A testable decision rule with confirmation and invalidation	An untested promise of direction or profitability

One ledger, seven evidence families

Update the Evidence by Channel, Not by Headline Volume

Use these buckets to prevent a crowded calendar from becoming a pile of disconnected notes. A release can affect more than one bucket; record the primary channel and cross-references instead of counting it twice.

Evidence family	Official inputs	Question for 6C	Common failure
Canadian policy	Bank decision, statement, MPR, speeches, surveys, deliberations	Did the expected Canadian path change?	Reading the target action without the package
Inflation	Statistics Canada total CPI, components, and Bank core measures	Did the inflation outlook change relative to prior?	Treating one volatile component as persistent trend
Labor	Labour Force Survey and wage/hours details	Did labor demand, supply, or slack alter policy/growth views?	Ignoring survey uncertainty and internal composition
Growth and demand	GDP by industry, expenditure accounts, retail and business evidence	Did expected activity or productive capacity change?	Mixing monthly, quarterly, real, and nominal measures
Trade	Merchandise and services trade by partner and product	Did external demand, export receipts, or import costs change?	Using a nominal trade balance as a complete growth signal
Energy and terms of trade	Canadian Energy Regulator and official trade/production data	Did export prices or volumes plausibly change Canadian income?	Assuming every oil move has the same cause and CAD effect
U.S. and global context	Fed, BLS, BEA, broad market observations, official event calendars	Did U.S. rates, demand, or the dollar move more than Canada?	Analyzing CAD as a one-country price

Positioning can be a context field, not an eighth fundamental. The CFTC's weekly reports break down Tuesday open interest and are published after the observation date. Categories are regulatory classifications, not a direct measure of every trader's conviction. Use the correct report and date; never describe delayed aggregate positions as live order flow.

The integration bridge

Map Evidence Into Relative Rates Before Mapping It Into 6C

Inflation and labor releases do not enter a currency formula directly. A common first-order route is that new evidence changes the expected central-bank path, which changes relative returns and financial conditions. Since 6C prices CAD against USD, the Canadian repricing must be compared with a U.S. repricing at a similar horizon.

Measure the surprise

Compare the released data or policy package with the frozen prior. Include revisions and policy-relevant components.

Observe Canadian repricing

Record selected policy-sensitive Canadian maturities and the shape of the move. Do not reduce a curve twist to "rates up."

Observe the U.S. side

Use comparable maturities and the same timestamps. A larger U.S. change can reverse the conclusion from Canada alone.

Check currency behavior

Ask whether 6C, spot CAD/USD or inverse USD/CAD, and the broader dollar support the interpretation after quote adjustment.

Mechanism, not law: a relative rise in expected Canadian returns can support CAD, all else equal. Failure cases: the rate move may reflect inflation risk rather than attractive real returns; global liquidity demand may favor USD; Canadian growth fears may dominate; or the entire repricing may already be in the futures price.

Real-economy channels

Keep Trade, Oil, and Terms of Trade Related but Distinct

Established fact: Statistics Canada reported that the United States received 71.7% of Canada's merchandise exports in 2025. The Canada Energy Regulator reported that the United States took 90.1% of Canadian crude-oil export volume that year. These facts establish material trade and energy links. They do not establish a stable intraday coefficient between crude futures and 6C.

Export-demand channel

Stronger U.S. activity can raise demand for Canadian output, but composition, inventories, tariffs, capacity, and the Canadian import response matter.

Export-price channel

Higher prices for major exports can improve Canadian income and terms of trade, but volumes and import prices can offset the gain.

Inflation channel

Energy can affect Canadian and U.S. inflation expectations, potentially changing both central-bank paths in different amounts.

Shock-source channel

Oil rising on strong global demand is not equivalent to oil rising because supply is disrupted. Growth and risk responses can differ.

Broad-dollar channel

Many commodities are priced in U.S. dollars, so a dollar move can affect commodity prices and 6C together without oil causing CAD.

Horizon channel

A structural export relationship can be economically important while being too slow or too noisy for a short-horizon trade rule.

For a dedicated mechanism and a reproducible correlation design, use the 6C-oil relationship guide. In the weekly ledger, summarize the oil channel in one row and link to the deeper work; do not rebuild the same correlation argument here.

From analysis to decisions

Write Branches, Confirmation, and Invalidation Before Price Moves

A macro thesis becomes useful only when it can be wrong. Use at least a base branch and an opposing branch. Add a stand-aside state for evidence conflict or unacceptable execution conditions.

Illustrative stronger-CAD branch

Relative Canadian evidence improves

Hypothesis: Canadian policy pricing firms relative to U.S. pricing while trade or energy evidence does not materially deteriorate. Confirmation candidate: 6C accepts above a predeclared level with the relative-rate move intact. Invalidation: the spread reverses, the broad dollar dominates, or price cannot hold despite acceptable liquidity.

Illustrative weaker-CAD branch

Relative Canadian evidence deteriorates

Hypothesis: Canadian growth or policy pricing weakens relative to the United States, reinforced by adverse trade or energy evidence. Confirmation candidate: 6C accepts below a predeclared level. Invalidation: U.S. pricing falls faster, risk appetite improves, or the breakdown fails.

A plausible thesis is not an order

Entry, invalidation distance, position size, contract month, order type, spread, depth, slippage, event exposure, and maximum loss belong to an execution plan. A macro branch can help determine what evidence to watch; it does not prove that the market offers a positive-expectancy trade.

Reusable weekly close

Complete This Decision Worksheet, Then Grade the Process

The worksheet is deliberately compact. If a conclusion cannot be supported in these fields, adding more narrative usually hides the gap rather than fixing it.

Worksheet field	Required entry	Review question
Cutoff and contract	Timestamp, timezone, active dated contract, roll condition	Did later information leak into the prior?
Material updates	New official facts, revisions, and source links by evidence family	Did I confuse a fact with my interpretation?
Relative-rate map	Canadian and U.S. changes at declared comparable horizons	Did the second currency change the conclusion?
Trade and terms of trade	Direction, cause, and horizon of material external shocks	Did I treat an oil move as an automatic CAD signal?
Branches	Base, opposing, and stand-aside scenarios	Could each branch be falsified?
Confirmation	Observable rate, currency, and market-quality conditions	Were they declared before the outcome?
Risk and invalidation	Loss limit, catalyst risk, thesis failure, execution failure	Would I stop when the written condition occurs?
Post-week review	Outcome by horizon, rival explanation, process error, next prior	Was the reasoning sound even if price disagreed?

Close the week in two separate passes

First, grade the decision using only the releases and market observations available at the original cutoff. Later, when an official agency revises a series, update a second research record without overwriting the real-time one. This separates process quality from hindsight and lets the next weekly prior inherit corrected history without pretending the correction was known earlier.

Pass one: Real-time vintage
Pass two: Revised history
Preserve: Both records
Carry forward: Corrected next prior

Research status: this is a decision and documentation framework. It does not claim that any listed factor leads 6C, assign predictive weights, report forecast accuracy, or establish profitability. Estimating those claims requires a point-in-time dataset, frozen transformations, synchronized market observations, transaction costs, and untouched validation periods.

Sources, method and editorial disclosure

Bank of Canada: monetary policy decision-making process for official policy inputs, forecasts, surveys, market expectations, and communication sequence.
Bank of Canada: monetary policy framework for Canada's inflation objective and the role of policy in financial conditions.
Statistics Canada release calendar and Statistics Canada international trade statistics for official Canadian data planning and trade evidence.
Statistics Canada: Canadian international merchandise trade, December and annual 2025 for the 2025 U.S. export share.
Canada Energy Regulator: overview of 2025 Canada-U.S. energy trade for official crude export volume and destination context.
Federal Reserve: monetary policy goals and transmission for the U.S. relative-rate channel.
CFTC Commitments of Traders reports for report timing, coverage, and financial-futures categories.
CME Group FX Product Guide for 6C quotation and futures-market context.

Sources and methods were reviewed August 13, 2026. The 2025 trade and energy figures are historical context, not forecasts. This article labels facts, mechanisms, hypotheses, inferences, and possible applications and reports no proprietary forecast or backtest result. The weekly workflow was independently written without sponsorship.