Despite the market pressuring the Bank of Canada to begin liftoff and start hiking interest rates, they held firm once again this past week. The bank flagged the recent floods in BC and the emergence of the Omicron variant as air cover to stand pat. Per the official release, “the
Happy Monday Morning! We got a string of new data this past week confirming inflation in consumer goods, and housing are proving to be more than transitory. Canada’s consumer price index continued to drift higher with prices hitting an 18 year high, up 4.7% from last October. The recent floods in BC
The calls for impending interest rate hikes continues. CIBC’s chief economist, Benjamin Tal, was out recently suggesting the Bank of Canada could hike its benchmark interest rate at least six times beginning in early 2022. “I think there is a risk of getting into the market at today’s rates,” noted Tal.
The BC Government announced it is looking at several cooling measures for the housing market in 2022. They have highlighted two measures. The first is an end to the blind bidding process, and the other is a mandatory “cooling off period” which will allow any buyer a 7 day recession
The Bank of Canada continues to slowly drain liquidity after flooding the system with a firehose of cash during the pandemic. Bank of Canada governor Tiff Macklem announced the end of Canada’s QE program (also known as money printing). Furthermore, in Macklems words, “We expect to begin increasing our policy
Consumer price inflation ripped higher in September, surging 4.4% year-over-year, the fastest pace of price increases in 18 years. Let’s discuss this further. We have an inflation problem and the Bank of Canada remains of the view that inflation will be transitory. Although they really can’t say otherwise, for if
It was back to the offer table for Canadian house shoppers. After a brief pause in shopping activity, home buyers returned in September. Sales activity increased 0.9% from August, as new listings declined. Low inventory levels continue to decimate the nations housing market as buyers pick over the scraps. There is
We’ve talked a lot about the great reshuffling here. The pandemic changed a lot of things, including where people want to live, and how they want to live. The lust for bigger spaces for less money has driven an exodus away from the city. Recent data from Stats Canada shows
It took over $600 million of tax pay dollars to reach the same outcome, another liberal minority government. I can think of a few better places to spend $600 million, affordable housing supply being one of them. Nonetheless, what’s done is done, and we now have some clarity on the
CPI inflation ripped, hitting 4.1% in August. Inflation in Canada is now accelerating at its fastest pace since 2003. The homeowners’ replacement cost index, which is related to the price of new homes, continued to trend upward, rising 14.3% year over year in August—the largest yearly increase since September 1987. Meanwhile,
The Bank of Canada provided guidance for how it plans to eventually remove stimulus, saying it will first raise interest rates before curbing its holdings of government bonds. The Bank has been using two major policies for suppressing interest rates, first by leaving its overnight policy rate near zero, and
Statistics Canada has revised the latest reading on GDP, highlighting a contraction of 1.1% at an annualized rate in the second quarter, well below the 2.5% expansion forecasted in a Bloomberg survey of economists. It’s a big miss, and one that does not bode well for the Trudeau Government as
