USDCAD BoC Stop Hunt: Forex Chart Markups, 27 April 2026

The USDCAD BoC stop hunt on Wednesday 29 April 2026 is the setup of the week. Price ran above the Asian range into the Bank of Canada rate decision at 09:45 New York, printed the high of the week at 1.37105, and fell 161 pips by Friday. It was a week of central banks, and every one of the eight instruments we track showed a weekly cycle, including a 524-pip reversal on USDJPY.

The week in brief

• Markets: the seven forex majors and gold (XAUUSD, counted at 1 pip = $1), on 15-minute and 1-hour candles.
• Daily setups: 5 textbook and 12 partial.
• Weekly cycle: 8 of 8 markets turned midweek (EURUSD, GBPUSD, USDJPY, USDCHF, AUDUSD, USDCAD, NZDUSD and XAUUSD).
• Setup of the week: USDCAD on Wednesday, both sides of the Asian range hunted, 6 of 8 on confluence: 44 pips that day, 161 on the week.
• News in sync with a stop hunt: CAD BoC Interest Rate Decision, BoC Monetary Policy Report, BoC Monetary Policy Statement; USD ISM Manufacturing PMI.

USDCAD BoC stop hunt: how to read these chart markups

New to these charts? Every markup reads price action in reverse. Retail traders are taught the same rules: buy the breakout, sell the breakdown, and put the stop just beyond the last high or low. So we know where their orders sit without seeing an order book. The blue box is the Asian range. The red crosses are retail stop losses. The hatched zone is the stop hunt, where price goes to collect them, and the big number in the header is what the reversal paid in pips. The full walkthrough is in How to Read a Forex Chart Markup.

The week at a glance: confluence ranking

Every daily setup of the week on one page, best first. The score is a tally of the eight confirmations the method lists, and the last column says what the rest of the week did with each level. USDCAD leads with 6 of 8.

The weekly cycle: induction, trap, reversal

The weekly cycle is the bigger picture behind every daily setup: an induction trend early in the week, the high or low of the week on Tuesday or Wednesday, then the reversal. We only draw it when the week actually turned, and each chart carries a checklist of which parts held. The idea is laid out in How to Read a Forex Chart Markup.

USDJPY · 524-pip reversal. The trap printed the high of the week at 160.723 on Thursday 02:15 New York, and the reversal ran 524 pips to 155.486 by Friday. 2 of 4 textbook checks held; the miss: the high of the week came Thursday, not Tuesday or Wednesday.

USDCAD · 161-pip reversal. The trap printed the high of the week at 1.37105 on Wednesday 09:45 New York, and the reversal ran 161 pips to 1.35496 by Friday. 4 of 5 textbook checks held; the miss: no induction trend, Sun to Tue ranged instead of trending.

USDCHF · 146-pip reversal. The trap printed the high of the week at 0.79247 on Wednesday 14:45 New York, and the reversal ran 146 pips to 0.77787 by Friday. 4 of 5 textbook checks held; the miss: no induction trend, Sun to Tue ranged instead of trending.

GBPUSD · 204-pip reversal. The trap printed the low of the week at 1.34539 on Thursday 02:00 New York, and the reversal ran 204 pips to 1.36576 by Friday. 2 of 4 textbook checks held; the miss: the low of the week came Thursday, not Tuesday or Wednesday.

NZDUSD · 110-pip reversal. The trap printed the low of the week at 0.58146 on Wednesday 14:45 New York, and the reversal ran 110 pips to 0.59243 by Friday. 3 of 5 textbook checks held; the miss: no induction trend, Sun to Tue ranged instead of trending.

AUDUSD · 126-pip reversal. The trap printed the low of the week at 0.71011 on Wednesday 14:45 New York, and the reversal ran 126 pips to 0.72275 by Friday. 4 of 5 textbook checks held; the miss: no induction trend toward the trap, Sun to Tue ran the other way.

EURUSD · 130-pip reversal. The trap printed the low of the week at 1.16551 on Thursday 00:30 New York, and the reversal ran 130 pips to 1.17851 by Friday. 2 of 4 textbook checks held; the miss: the low of the week came Thursday, not Tuesday or Wednesday.

Gold (XAUUSD) · 150-pip reversal. The trap printed the low of the week at 4509.88 on Wednesday 09:45 New York, and the reversal ran 150 pips to 4660.06 by Friday. 3 of 4 textbook checks held; the miss: the reversal gave back 68% of the induction.

Setup of the week: USDCAD both sides hunted, 29 April 2026

USDCAD spent the Asian session in a 22-pip range between 1.36697 and 1.36917. New York then pushed 19 pips past the Asian high, to 1.37105 at 09:45 New York: the breakout the crowd buys. There was no first leg and neckline beyond the range, so this is a plain stop hunt of the Asian range, not an M or a W. Price did not continue. It reversed 44 pips to 1.36669 in 2h 45m, through the whole Asian range.

Then the other side was hunted. At 12:30 New York price was 3 pips under the Asian low, at 1.36669: 44 pips from the first extreme, with the buyers' stops taken and new sellers trapped. Price then ran 25 pips back to 1.36915 by 14:45. Both sides of the Asian range were cleared before the day picked a direction.

Now read it in reverse. At each of those prices, whose orders were waiting?

Where the retail stops were

• Sellers' stops above the Asian high, 1.36917: taken by the stop hunt.
• Buyers' stops below the Asian low, 1.36697: taken as the reversal cleared the range.

The trade. The method sells against the breakout, on the stop hunt past the Asian high (1.37105). The stricter trigger, the first 15-minute close back inside, came with 22 pips of risk to the extreme and 22 pips to the low of the day, about 1 to 1.0. The method skips anything under 1 to 3, so from that trigger this one does not qualify. These numbers are measured after the fact from 15-minute candles.

Confirmations (the New York stop hunt at the high): 6 of 8. It had a clear Asian range, a hunt at a session open, high-impact news in sync, a Tuesday or Wednesday date, the high or low of the week and induction from the week's open. Missing: a second-leg stop hunt and the previous day's level taken. It is the high of the week.

The mindset behind fading a breakout is in How to Read a Forex Chart Markup. For the same stop hunt on USDCAD, see USDCAD M formation, week of 25 May 2026.

Textbook setups, day by day

A setup is textbook when the reversal clears the whole Asian range, or runs at least three quarters of the pair's average daily range. The daily cycle behind all of them, Asia consolidating, London breaking out and the reversal after, is covered in How to Read a Forex Chart Markup.

Friday · AUDUSD · Both sides hunted (44 pips). London took the stops below the Asian low at 0.71830 (05:45 New York); the reversal went through the whole Asian range. Then the other side was hunted at 10:00 New York, 23 pips above the Asian high.

Friday · USDCAD · W formation (43 pips). The second leg took the stops below the first leg at 1.35496 (08:15 New York); the reversal went through the whole Asian range.

Friday · EURUSD · M formation (70 pips). The second leg took the stops above the first leg at 1.17851 (10:15 New York); the reversal went through the whole Asian range.

Friday · GBPUSD · M formation (89 pips). The second leg took the stops above the first leg at 1.36576 (10:15 New York); the reversal went through the whole Asian range.

Partial setups: the structure without the follow-through

These printed the structure, but the reversal stalled inside the Asian range. They are worth studying for exactly that reason: the trap was real and the payoff was small.

Monday · USDJPY · London stop hunt (37 pips). London took the stops below the Asian low at 159.094 (05:00 New York); the reversal went back inside the Asian range.

Monday · EURUSD · M formation (36 pips). The second leg took the stops above the first leg at 1.17548 (08:15 New York); the reversal went back inside the Asian range.

Monday · GBPUSD · M formation (46 pips). The second leg took the stops above the first leg at 1.35758 (08:15 New York); the reversal went back inside the Asian range.

Monday · USDCHF · W formation (29 pips). The second leg took the stops below the first leg at 0.78306 (10:45 New York); the reversal went back inside the Asian range.

Tuesday · GBPUSD · W formation (59 pips). The second leg took the stops below the first leg at 1.34628 (07:45 New York); the reversal went back inside the Asian range.

Tuesday · USDJPY · M formation (38 pips). The second leg took the stops above the first leg at 159.787 (07:45 New York); the reversal went back inside the Asian range.

Tuesday · AUDUSD · New York stop hunt (36 pips). New York took the stops below the Asian low at 0.71505 (08:00 New York); the reversal went back inside the Asian range.

Tuesday · EURUSD · New York stop hunt (40 pips). New York took the stops below the Asian low at 1.16774 (08:00 New York); the reversal went back inside the Asian range.

Tuesday · NZDUSD · New York stop hunt (24 pips). New York took the stops below the Asian low at 0.58655 (08:00 New York); the reversal went back inside the Asian range.

Friday · NZDUSD · New York stop hunt (33 pips). New York took the stops above the Asian high at 0.59243 (10:15 New York, 14 pips through Thursday's high); the reversal went back inside the Asian range.

Friday · USDCHF · W formation (41 pips). The second leg took the stops below the first leg at 0.77787 (10:15 New York); the reversal went back inside the Asian range.

Friday · Gold (XAUUSD) · New York stop hunt (53 pips). New York took the stops above the Asian high at 4660.06 (10:15 New York, 13 pips through Thursday's high); the reversal went back inside the Asian range.

Daily and weekly confluence, pair by pair

Each chart pins a pair's daily setups on its hourly chart for the week. The solid line is the move that day, the dashed line is how far it ran before the level was traded back through, and a gold band marks a weekly reversal. The table under each chart ticks the confirmations.

EURUSD. 3 setups, best 5 of 8 (Friday, M off the high).

GBPUSD. 3 setups, best 5 of 8 (Friday, M off the high).

USDJPY. 2 setups, best 3 of 8 (Tuesday, M off the high).

USDCHF. 2 setups, best 5 of 8 (Friday, W off the low).

AUDUSD. 3 setups, best 5 of 8 (Friday, M off the high).

USDCAD. 3 setups, best 6 of 8 (Wednesday, New York stop hunt at the high).

NZDUSD. 2 setups, best 5 of 8 (Friday, New York stop hunt at the high).

Gold (XAUUSD). 1 setup, best 2 of 8 (Friday, New York stop hunt at the high).

What this week teaches about reverse price action

High-impact news does not create the move. It supplies the liquidity for it. Going into the rate decision, price had already been walked up through Tuesday's high, where the stops were resting. The announcement brought the volume, the stops were taken in one candle, and the real direction showed itself afterwards. If you read the chart before the calendar, the question becomes simple: which side of the range is crowded when the news hits?

On the news itself: the event gives the crowd its reason, and the chart shows where the orders already were.

Frequently asked questions

What was the best forex setup in the week of 27 April 2026?

By confluence, USDCAD on Wednesday: a New York stop hunt at the high that scored 6 of 8. It moved 44 pips that day and 161 on the week. It was the high of the week.

Was there a midweek reversal in the week of 27 April 2026?

Yes, on 8 of the 8 markets we track: EURUSD, GBPUSD, USDJPY, USDCHF, AUDUSD, USDCAD, NZDUSD and Gold (XAUUSD). The largest was USDJPY, 524 pips from the high of the week at 160.723.

What does "both sides hunted" mean?

It means the stops above the Asian high and the stops below the Asian low were both taken on the same day. One session hunts one side, the reversal runs through the whole range, and the other side is hunted before the day picks a direction.

Why do stop hunts happen on news releases?

A scheduled release brings the most orders into the market at a known minute. Price is often already sitting next to a level with stops behind it, and the release supplies the volume to take them. The timing of the event matters more than the number.

Related chart markups

• Previous week: USDCAD stop hunt, week of 20 April 2026
• Next week: Forex weekly cycle, week of 4 May 2026
• USDCAD M formation, week of 25 May 2026: the same stop hunt on USDCAD
• USDCHF stop hunt, week of 21 September 2026: another stop hunt, on USDCHF
• USDCAD W formation, week of 8 June 2026: another stop hunt timed to news
• All forex chart markups, week by week
• How to Read a Forex Chart Markup: what every mark on these charts means

Learn to read the chart this way. The Forexia Academy courses cover the Asian range, M and W formations and the weekly cycle step by step. Browse the courses.

These chart markups are made after the fact, for study. They are not signals and not trade advice. Candles: Dukascopy. Economic calendar: FXStreet. All times are New York. Stop-loss positions are the method's reading of the structure, not order-book data.