Finally, Some Good News on the Inflation Front It was widely expected that US consumer price inflation would decelerate in July, reflecting the decline in energy prices that peaked in early June. The US CPI was unchanged last month following its 1.3% spike in June. This reduced the year-over-year inflation rate to 8.5% from a […]

The Canadian Economy Is Slowing–Job Markets Will Begin To Shift The July employment report, released this morning by Statistics Canada, is a real head-scratcher. The job numbers fell for a second consecutive month, but so did the number of job seekers, so the unemployment rate remained unchanged at a historic low of 4.9%. I have […]

Canadian Inflation Surged to 8.1% in June Another bad inflation number was posted today. The rate of consumer inflation continued to rise, reaching 8.1% year over year (y/y) in June, following the 7.7% gain in May. The increase was the largest yearly change since January 1983. The acceleration in June was mainly due to higher […]

House Price Decline Accelerated in June Statistics released today by the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) show that the slowdown that began in March in response to higher interest rates has broadened. Home sales recorded over Canadian MLS® Systems fell by 5.6% between May and June 2022, taking second-quarter sales down sharply (see chart below). The actual […]

A Super-Sized Rate Hike, Signalling More To Come  The Governing Council of the Bank of Canada raised its target for the overnight policy rate by a full percentage point to 2-1/2%. The Bank is also continuing its policy of quantitative tightening (QT), reducing its holdings of Government of Canada bonds, which puts additional upward pressure […]

Statistics released today by the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) show that the slowdown that began in March in response to higher interest rates has broadened. In April, national home sales dropped by 12.6% monthly (m/m). National home sales fell by 8.6% between April and May, building on April’s decline, leaving monthly activity at pre-COVID […]

Today’s Labour Market Survey for May 2022 showed that hiring continued at a rapid pace last month in an increasingly tight labour market, driving the jobless rate to another record low and fueling a sharp acceleration in wage gains. The economy added 39,000 jobs in May, surpassing expectations. The unemployment rate fell to 5.1%, far […]

The Governing Council of the Bank of Canada raised the overnight policy rate by a full 50 basis points once again today, marking the third rate hike this year. The two back-to-back half-point increases are without precedent, but so were the dramatic pandemic rate cuts in the spring of 2020. Indeed, with the surge in […]

Inflation at 6.8% is unmitigated bad news. The Bank of Canada looks flat-footed again, having forecast that Inflation would be at least a full percentage point lower by now. What’s worse, inflation looks likely to rise again this month given the surge in gasoline prices from April to May. Today’s report raises the urgency for […]

    Canadian Housing Market Feels The Pinch of Higher Rates  Statistics released today by the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) show that the slowdown that began in March in response to higher interest rates has broadened. In April, national home sales dropped by 12.6% on a month-over-month (m/m) basis. The decline placed the monthly […]