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Housing Correction Continued In October Statistics released today by the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) show home sales were up 1.3% on a month-over-month basis in October. Still, monthly activity remained a whopping 36% below the October pace in 2021. The housing correction continues in response to the Bank of Canada’s massive rate hikes, but…

Very Strong Employment Report For October  Today’s Labour Force Survey for October was surprisingly strong, boosting wage inflation to an eye-popping 5.6% year-over-year pace. While good news for the economy, this is terrible news for the inflation fight–just when the Bank of Canada eased its foot on the brakes. The two-year and five-year Government of…

The Bank of Canada Slowed the Pace of Monetary Tightening The Governing Council of the Bank of Canada raised its target for the overnight policy rate by 50 basis points today to 3.75% and signalled that the policy rate would rise further. The Bank is also continuing its policy of quantitative tightening (QT), reducing its holdings…

Bank of Canada Will Not Be Happy With This Inflation Report Canada’s headline inflation rate ticked down slightly last month to 6.9%, but measures of core inflation remain stubbornly high, and food prices hit a 41-year high. Lower gasoline prices were primarily responsible for the decline in inflation in the past three months. Bond markets…

Orderly Housing Correction Continues There are many unusual aspects to the current housing correction, but fundamentally the most noteworthy is how orderly and non-chaotic it has been. Home sales have slowed, but so have new listings, so the price declines are more muted than we might have expected. This is not a housing collapse. It…

Inflation Cooled Again in August, But Higher Rates Still Coming Canada’s headline inflation rate cooled again in August, even a bit more than expected. The consumer price index rose 7.0% from a year ago, down from 7.6% in July and a forty-year high of 8.1% in June, mainly on the back of lower gasoline prices….

Housing Softens Again in August The full effects of the most recent rate hikes have not yet manifested. Statistics released today by the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) show that the slowdown that began in March in response to higher interest rates continued in August, albeit at a slower pace. Home sales recorded over Canadian…

Dr. Sherry Cooper lends her insights to Canadian Mortgage Professionals in their latest piece around the labour market. The latest data from Statistics Canada showed that employment levels declined for the third straight month in August while the jobless rate spiked – pointing to the fact that the Canadian jobs market remains “considerably weaker than…

Job Market Weakens As Economy Slows The August employment report, released this morning by Statistics Canada, was considerably weaker than expected. Higher interest rates have slowed the red-hot labour market. The Canadian economy shed 39,700  jobs in August, missing market expectations of a 15,000 rise and bringing cumulative declines since May 2022 to 113,500 (see…

The Bank of Canada Hiked Rates Again And Isn’t Finished Yet The Governing Council of the Bank of Canada raised its target for the overnight policy rate by 75 basis points today to 3.25% and signalled that the policy rate would rise further. The Bank is also continuing its policy of quantitative tightening (QT), reducing its…