None of the two currencies involved in this pair are majors, therefore the pair itself is not a major either. While the CAD is definitely a commodity currency, the NZD is more closely linked to the price of foods and agricultural products. Thus the pair is not a commodity pair either.
The NZD
Introduced in 1967, the New Zealand dollar has always reflected the economic states of the two most important trading partners of the country: the US and Australia. As said above, the NZD is largely dependent on food prices, as the economy of the country is built upon food processing, services and agriculture.
Being the small currency that it is, the NZD’s strength hinges upon the strength of the AUD and the USD respectively. The NZD is the 12th most traded currency in the world. That also explains why there are relatively small direct trading volumes on the NZD/CAD pair.
The CAD
The Canadian Dollar is the result of decades of wrangling over what sort of currency the country should use. For a while there, there have been efforts to merge the CAD into the USD, but eventually, the two countries maintained separate currencies.
It almost goes without saying that by far the biggest and most powerful trading partner of Canada is the US. This state of affair explains the close correlation between the currencies of the two countries. Over 85% of Canadian exports are headed to the US, while the country gets some 50% of its imports from its Southern neighbor.
NZD/CAD Analysis
The reasons behind the low trading volumes on the NZD/CAD pair are numerous. First of all, there’s the geographical distance between the two countries and their economies. Then, there’s the fact that the economy of New Zealand is very small indeed. Given how the CAD is a commodity currency, it is safe to say that food prices and commodity cycles have the biggest impact on the pair.