Month: January 2023

No Surprises Here: The Bank of Canada Hiked Rates By Only 25 bps, Signalling A Pause As expected, the Bank of Canada–satisfied with the sharp decline in recent inflation pressure–raised the policy rate by only 25 bps to 4.5%. Forecasting that inflation will return to roughly 3.0% later this year and to the target of 2%…

Good News on the Inflation Front in December The Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose 6.3% year over year in December, down from the 6.8% pace in November. Much of the decline was owing to the drop in gasoline prices. Additional deceleration came from homeowners’ replacement costs, fuel oil and other owned accommodation expenses, and various durable…

OSFI Is At It Again Late last week, the Office of the Superintendent for Financial Institutions (OSFI) announced it was concerned about the risks associated with the large and rising number of highly indebted borrowers, especially those with floating-rate mortgages, which stands at a record proportion of outstanding mortgage loans.  With the economy in danger…

December Housing Data Ended 2022 On A Weak Note Statistics released today by the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) show national home sales were up month-over-month in December while new listings plummeted and national home prices fell again.  Home sales recorded over Canadian MLS® Systems increased 1.3% between November and December 2022. Ottawa and Edmonton…

Employment Report Ended 2022 With A Boom Today’s Labour Force Survey for December was much stronger than expected, raising the odds of a 25 bps increase in the policy rate by the Bank of Canada on January 25th. While the Bank has hiked rates by 400 bps to 4.25%, core inflation remains sticky, wages have…