Strong Housing Market The Canadian Real Estate Association says home sales in May rose 5.1% month-over-month (m/m), adding to the 11.1% gain in April. This brought the year-over-year sales gain to 1.4%, The first y/y sales increase in almost two years. While spring home sales started booming (compared to the past year), the surprising 25 […]

May’s Softer Labour Market Ironically, the May Labour Force Survey showed a modest slowdown two days after the Bank of Canada surprised the markets by raising interest rates. Employment was little changed in May, down 17,300, all for youth aged 15 to 24. All other age cohorts enjoyed continued rapid job gains. Total hours worked […]

Holy Smokes, Bank of Canada Means Business If there were any doubt that the Bank of Canada wanted inflation to fall to 2%, it would be obliterated today. In a relatively surprising move, the Bank hiked the overnight policy rate by 25 bps to 4.75%, and an equivalent hike will follow in the prime rate. […]

Good News is Bad News for Bank of Canada The Canadian economy continues to show marked resilience to high-interest rates. Statistics Canada released data this morning showing real GDP rose at an above-consensus 3.1% annual rate in the first quarter of this year. The estimate for April growth was also firm, a harbinger of continued […]

Core Inflation Slows Down There’s been an unexpected hiccup in the Bank of Canada’s ongoing battle against inflation. Year-over-year, price pressures escalated to 4.4% in April, an uptick from the previous month’s 4.3% and significantly exceeding the average economist’s prediction of 4.1%. This marks the first rise in overall inflation from the last June. Ironically, […]

Vital Spring Housing Market The Canadian Real Estate Association says home sales in April surged 11.3% month-over-month. The Spring rebound was on the heels of smaller back-to-back gains in the prior two months. Now that the Bank of Canada paused interest rate hikes and home prices in most regions have softened, homebuyers are scrambling for […]

Weakening Housing Risk for Economy On April 18, Canada’s national banking regulator, the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI), released its second Annual Risk Outlook (ARO), outlining what it believes are the most significant headwinds facing the Canadian financial system – and what the regulator plans on doing about it. According to the […]

Great News on the Inflation Front The Consumer Price Index (CPI) fell sharply in March to 4.3% year-over-year, continuing a pattern of repeated declines. Before we break out the champagne, however, much of the drop in inflation resulted from the steep monthly increase in prices in March one year ago (1.4% m/m), the so-called base-year […]

Good News on Housing Front The Canadian Real Estate Association says home sales in March edged up 1.4% in March. Homeowners and buyers were comforted by the fall in fixed mortgage rates as the Bank of Canada paused rate hikes. Bond market yields, though very volatile, have trended downward in March, although they have bounced […]

Bank of Canada Holds 2% Inflation The Bank of Canada left the overnight policy rate at 4.5%, as expected, stating their view that inflation will hit 3% by mid-year and reach the 2% target by next year. They admit, however, that demand continues to exceed supply, wage gains are too high, and labour markets are […]