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The Bank of Canada’s first-quarter Senior Loan Officer Survey (SLOS) showed a sharp tightening of mortgage lending standards, but we already know that has not been enough to prevent a resurgence in the housing market. While bank lending standards for …
12th May 2023
Following the renewed concerns about regional US banks this week, markets are again pricing in interest rate cuts from the Bank of Canada later this year. From a domestic perspective, however, the strength of the local real estate board data in April and …
5th May 2023
The Bank of Canada’s Summary of Deliberations suggests it was closer to resuming interest rate hikes in April than we thought. Nonetheless, as the data releases this week showed a fall in the job vacancy rate and point to a contraction in March GDP, it …
28th April 2023
There was positive news for the Bank of Canada this week, as core inflation eased further in March. While our new house price forecasts imply there will be less disinflationary pressure from shelter prices this year than we previously anticipated, the …
21st April 2023
Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem used his press conference this week to push back against expectations for interest rate cuts later this year. That partly reflects the Bank’s less downbeat assessment of the economic outlook, but the nascent rebound in …
14th April 2023
The local real estate board data suggest that new listings fell again in March, defying expectations that high interest rates could lead to forced home sales. With supply falling by more than demand, the risks to our house price forecasts lie to the …
6th April 2023
The strength of GDP growth at the start of the year reflected several temporary factors. The Bank of Canada’s latest quarterly surveys, released next week, will provide a better guide to how firms and consumers are coping with higher interest rates. GDP …
31st March 2023
Despite the news this week that the population surged by more than one million last year, weak new home sales imply that construction activity will soon fall. That raises the pressure on the government to boost home supply, but there has been little word …
24th March 2023
The fixed payment structure of most variable rate mortgages has cushioned households from the impact of high interest rates so far, with the data this week confirming that debt service costs remained low last quarter. But that only delays the pain in …
17th March 2023
Despite the renewed hawkishness of central bankers elsewhere, the speech that followed the Bank of Canada’s policy announcement this week suggests that the bar to resume rate hikes remains high. Bank still comfortable with its “conditional pause” The …
10th March 2023
The latest data give the Bank of Canada plenty to think about ahead of its policy announcement next week. The data appear to lend support to the Bank’s view that a soft landing is still achievable, with the stagnation in fourth-quarter GDP followed by a …
3rd March 2023
The larger-than-expected fall in CPI inflation in January was partly due to one-off effects, but still reduces the chance that the Bank of Canada will be forced to resume raising interest rates. Nevertheless, the renewed rises in the job vacancy rate …
24th February 2023
Governor Tiff Macklem reiterated this week that the Bank of Canada wants time to assess the impact of high interest rates, suggesting it will not respond to the strength of employment by immediately resuming interest rate hikes. The weakness of home …
17th February 2023
The surge in employment and rise in hours worked in January suggest that economic activity continued to expand at the start of 2023 and present clear upside risks to our forecasts for GDP growth. Nevertheless, we disagree with the market-implied view …
10th February 2023
There were more mixed signals this week on how the economy is coping with higher interest rates. The GDP data suggest fourth-quarter growth was stronger than initially expected and the manufacturing PMI unexpectedly rose back into expansionary territory …
3rd February 2023
Governor Tiff Macklem stressed on Wednesday that the pause in the Bank of Canada’s tightening cycle is conditional on looser conditions in the labour market and a fall in inflation expectations. The CFIB Business Barometer showed evidence of both a day …
27th January 2023
The CPI-trim and CPI-median measures of core inflation will be revised up next month but that does not change our view that they will fall sharply over the first half of this year. We think the 25 bp hike from the Bank of Canada next week will mark the …
20th January 2023
The December CPI data and the Bank of Canada’s quarterly business and consumer surveys, released next week, could have a big bearing on the policy outlook. For the Bank to pause after one final 25 bp hike this month, as we assume, it will need to see …
13th January 2023
The resilience of the labour market is a risk to our view that the Bank of Canada will pause its tightening cycle after a final 25 bp hike this month, even as the slump in natural gas prices raises the chance that CPI inflation will fall faster than the …
6th January 2023
The November CPI data were a mixed bag, with deflationary pressure on goods starting to feed through but strong price rises for several key services. The 3-month annualised measures of core inflation that the Bank of Canada follows will probably drop back …
23rd December 2022
One third of the rise in household net worth during the pandemic has now been reversed and the further fall in house prices in November points to another deterioration this quarter. Lower net worth, in turn, is a headwind to consumption in 2023. Net …
16th December 2022
The Bank of Canada’s 50bp rate hike this week means that variable mortgage rates are now more than 400bp higher than the start of the year. This raises the risk that some will be forced to sell their homes, although there was little evidence of …
9th December 2022
The national accounts data provided two pieces of good news this week, with revisions to the historical series and stronger-than-expected third-quarter growth leaving GDP higher than expected. While some argue that this will cause the Bank of Canada to …
2nd December 2022
Research from the Bank of Canada suggests that half of all variable-rate, fixed-payment mortgage holders have now hit their so-called trigger rates, which means their payments will rise. This is one factor weighing on spending, with retail sales volumes …
25th November 2022
Although the data this week showed renewed rises in the annual rates of CPI-trim and CPI-median inflation in October, our calculations show that the timelier 3-month annualised measures both declined. That could persuade the Bank of Canada to drop down …
18th November 2022
Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem said this week that the unemployment rate will need to rise to help restore price stability, but he also played down the significance of the strong gains in employment and average earnings in October. That suggests …
11th November 2022
The modest fiscal loosening unveiled in the Fall Economic Statement this week is unlikely to move the needle much for monetary policy, but the surge in employment in October and the acceleration in wage growth nevertheless leave the Bank of Canada’s …
4th November 2022
The Bank of Canada now judges that there is a 50/50 chance of GDP growth turning negative, which caused it to slow the pace of its tightening to a 50 bp hike this week and to hint that it will drop to a 25 bp at the final meeting of the year. We assume …
28th October 2022
The data released this week showed that higher interest rates are yet to have much of a negative impact on construction or consumption and that core inflation is proving stickier than anticipated. This has prompted us to upgrade our forecast for the …
21st October 2022
Canada is unlikely to succumb to the same crisis currently afflicting UK markets, but those problems are a reminder that rapidly rising interest rates have a habit of breaking things. In Canada’s case, the biggest vulnerabilities are housing and household …
14th October 2022
The hawkish speech from Governor Tiff Macklem this week suggests that the Bank of Canada has no intention of following the Reserve Bank of Australia in dropping down to a 25 bp hike at its next meeting, despite the growing downside risks to the economy, …
7th October 2022
The accepted wisdom is that strong immigration reduces the pressure on the Bank of Canada to raise interest rates, as it will eventually help to ease labour shortages. But the immediate impact has been to boost rental growth at a time when the Bank is …
30th September 2022
The hawkish message from the Federal Reserve this week has prompted us to revise up our forecast for the peak policy rate in Canada to 4.0%, even as the latest data suggest that inflationary pressures are easing and the economy faces a growing risk of …
23rd September 2022
Manufacturing outlook remains muted Although manufacturing sales volumes increased by 0.5% m/m in June and 0.6% m/m in July, those gains only partly reversed the 2.1% decline in May. Furthermore, the July gain looks like it was boosted by a …
16th September 2022
The Bank of Canada’s hawkish communications this week, alongside its 75bp policy rate hike, suggest that it remains unfazed about the downside risks to activity and that it initially favours a 50bp hike at the next meeting in October. That said, the …
9th September 2022
Two quarters of strong outperformance have not been enough for the recovery in GDP to catch up with that in the US and, with growth now grinding to a halt, the divergence is set to widen again. GDP still well below pre-pandemic trend The 3.3% annualised …
2nd September 2022
There was some better news from the CFIB Business Barometer and new home sales data this week, although both still point to weak economic growth. Meanwhile, the fall in firms’ selling price expectations to a 10-month low in August suggests that core …
26th August 2022
The further rise in core inflation in July was largely due to a surge in travel services prices, much of which should be reversed after the summer. Nevertheless, that rise in core inflation, the continued strength of broader housing-related activity, …
19th August 2022
Yield curve inversions have a patchy record of predicting recessions in Canada, but they almost always precede a sharp economic slowdown and the unusually deep nature of the current inversion makes it especially hard to be optimistic this time. Yield …
12th August 2022
The further falls in home sales and employment in July add to the evidence that the economy is losing momentum. With no sign of a material easing of inflationary pressures, however, it is too soon to expect the Bank of Canada to pivot. Home sales down by …
5th August 2022
The slump in the CFIB Business Barometer in July – to a post-pandemic low – shows that the jump in borrowing costs is hitting more than just the housing market. With the survey still pointing to elevated price and wage expectations, however, the mounting …
29th July 2022
CPI inflation has finally peaked but this will not be enough to prevent further large interest rate hikes from the Bank of Canada, especially as there is little evidence yet that the weakening housing market is weighing on construction. Some positive …
22nd July 2022
The Bank of Canada justified its 100 bp interest rate hike on the basis that front-loading hikes has historically raised the chance of a “soft landing”. With the pace of house price declines already gathering pace ahead of that move, however, we are not …
15th July 2022
The falls in commodity prices this week point to some relief ahead for CPI inflation, but the Bank of Canada will be more focused on the rises in long-run inflation expectations and wage growth in the latest data, prompting a larger 75 bp interest rate …
8th July 2022
While the apparent contraction in GDP in May appears to have been partly due to temporary factors, it also reflects the impact of the surge in interest rates on housing. With the business surveys for June also showing a loss of broader momentum, the …
30th June 2022
The May CPI data showed that inflationary pressures remain acute across the economy, which reinforces our view that despite growing concerns about the housing market, the Bank of Canada will become a member of the “75bp club” in July. Inflation now the …
24th June 2022
The new CPI weights outlined this week mean that inflation will peak at more than 8% in June, which is higher than we previously expected. That further raises the chance of the Bank of Canada following the Federal Reserve with a 75 bp interest rate …
17th June 2022
Governor Tiff Macklem’s hawkish comments this week, even as he presented a report warning of the risks of aggressive policy tightening, leave little doubt that the Bank of Canada is singularly focused on making up for keeping policy too loose for too …
10th June 2022
Following its second 50 bp policy rate hike, the Bank of Canada hinted that it will consider an even larger move next month. With CPI inflation heading to 7.5% this month due to the surge in gasoline prices, there is a clear chance of a larger move, …
3rd June 2022
With core inflation rising well above the ceiling of the 1% to 3% target range and first-quarter GDP growth likely to have been as strong as 5.0% annualised, there is little to stop the Bank of Canada from hiking its policy rate by another 50bp this week, …
27th May 2022