Canadian Dollar
More Green Shoots
August 26, 2009
The signs of economic spring are arriving in greater abundance and color, and it’s happening most everywhere. World trade volume rose in June for the first time in 11 months according to a Dutch think tank. Real GDP expanded 1.3% at a seasonally adjusted annualize rate (saar) during 2Q09 in both Germany and France. Euroland’s […] More
Canadian CPI Inflation
August 19, 2009
Consumer prices declined 0.3% between June and July and by 0.9% over the past twelve months. The on-year change represents a deeper drop after June’s minus 0.3% and a 4.4 percentage point swing from an increase of 3.5% in the year to August 2008. Over the past year, energy prices tumbled 23.4%, food rose 5.0% […] More
Canadian Bonds and Stocks Attracting Foreign Capital
August 18, 2009
The Canadian dollar advanced 8.5% against its U.S. counterpart in the second quarter and has appreciated by a further 4.9% since mid-year. Foreigners bought C$ 30.7 billion of Canadian fixed income securities and C$ 8.6 billion of Canadian equities last quarter. Those net purchases surpassed C$ 4.1 billion of Canadian net buying of foreign equities […] More
Canadian and U.S. Trade
August 12, 2009
A sharp drop of the Canadian trade deficit from C$ 1.105 billion in May to C$ 0.055 billion in June is not really an encouraging development, since it reflects higher energy export prices and weak imports. While total exports grew 2.3%, non-energy Canadian exports slipped 0.5% and were 23.9% below their June 2008 level. Imports […] More
July Canadian Labor Market Data Mixed
August 7, 2009
Canada reported an unchanged 8.6% jobless rate last. Such had climbed to that level in June from 7.2% in January and 6.1% last September. However, 44.5K jobs were lost last month, akin to a decline of 348K in the U.S. labor market. The job destruction was distributed mostly among accommodation and food services (22.2K) and […] More
Quarterly Canadian Monetary Policy Report Released
July 23, 2009
Under a new more transparent format, Canada’s central bank today released a full 25-page policy report. It previously released lengthy explanations of its assumptions and expectations in April and October but condensed 8-page updates in July and January. Many of the latest major points were included in Tuesday’s scheduled interest rate announcement. Among the reports […] More
Bank of Canada Policy Statement: Continuity and No Surprises
July 21, 2009
The fifth scheduled Bank of Canada policy announcement of 2009: Retains an overnight rate target at 0.25% and unchanged levels of 0.50% for its Bank Rate and 0.25% for the deposit rate. Repeats the pledge, first given on April 21st, not to raise the overnight target rate until at least mid-2010. Announces new schedules of […] More
Previewing Bank of Canada's Rate Announcement Tomorrow
July 20, 2009
The fifth Bank of Canada scheduled monetary policy announcement of 2009 at 13:00 GMT on Tuesday is likely to extend existing policy parameters. After halving the overnight target rate to 0.25% on April 21st, officials declared that level to be its effective lower boundary. To give some future guidance, two additional actions were then undertaken. […] More
Negative Canadian Consumer Price Inflation
July 17, 2009
The Canadian CPI declined 0.3% in the year to June, its first on-year drop since November 1994. After peaking at 3.5% last August, inflation fell to 1.1% by December and +0.1% in May. Higher energy costs, mostly for gasoline, accounted for a June-over-May seasonally adjusted 0.3% increase of consumer prices after a rise of 0.2% […] More
Canadian Manufacturing Still in Woeful Shape
July 16, 2009
A 6.0% monthly plunge in factory sales in May was the largest drop since January and left the level at a 10-1/2 year low. In the ten months between July 2008 and May, sales plunged 28.8%, while new orders sank by a steeper 37.7%. The inventory:sales ratio is still rising and, at 1.64, has climbed […] More
