Canadian interest rates might be coming down but the bond market is signaling higher mortgage rates. The Government of Canada (GoC) bond yields have reverse coursed and begun to climb sharply since central bank rate cuts earlier this week. Rising yields directly impact the cost of financing fixed-rate mortgages, which have been the most affordable […]
Canadian real estate buyers may be disappointed by the lack of relief they got from a supersized rate cut. A new BMO investor memo explains the Bank of Canada (BoC) overnight rate cut only provides relief to variable rate mortgages and HELOCs. Since more popular fixed rate mortgages are cheaper, buyers hoping for a cheaper […]
Canada’s central bank announced another “supersized” rate cut this morning, as widely expected by the market. The Bank of Canada (BoC) overnight policy rate was slashed to 3.25% after being trimmed by a 50 basis points (bps) drop. This marked the fifth consecutive cut to the rate, and the second supersized cut—a move typically only […]
Canada’s weak dollar may be good news for foreign capital but bad news for the cost of living. The loonie has plunged against the US dollar in recent months, and it’s unlikely to improve soon. Currency weakness has been a blow to manufacturers of complex and expensive goods like housing, which have seen input costs […]
Time for your cheat sheet on this week’s top stories. Canadian Real Estate Canadian Unemployment Hits Highest Non-Pandemic Rate Since 2017 Canada is adding jobs at one of the fastest paces on record, but adding even more people. Despite adding 51k jobs in November, the unemployment rate made a sharp uptick of 0.3 points to […]
Canadians can add another crisis to the pile—productivity. Statistics Canada (Stat Can) data shows labor productivity fell in Q3 2024, extending a problem that’s been happening for years. The country has shown virtually no progress over the past decade, falling sharply behind its biggest trade partner. The problem is wreaking havoc in a number of […]
What pandemic? Statistics Canada (Stat Can) recently revised its gross domestic product (GDP) data to show the economy is doing better. Revisions are routine, just not at this scale—which BMO called “re-writing” the pandemic. Now the data shows the hardest hit industries weren’t nearly as impacted as previously believed, and they’ve all recovered at this […]
Time for your cheat sheet on this week’s top stories. Canadian Real Estate Canadian GDP Rises On Gov Spending, Big Revisions To Slow Rate Cuts: BMO Canada’s economy is growing faster than anticipated, which may lead to higher rates. Real GDP showed annualized growth of 1.2% in Q3, slightly below expectations. However, the report came […]
Canada’s economy is still chugging along, and doing better than many experts thought. Statistics Canada (Stat Can) data shows Gross Domestic Product (GDP) advanced in Q3 2024, mainly driven by household borrowing and government spending. A continued drop in per-capita GDP was almost entirely overshadowed by big upward revisions to prior data. One of the […]
Good news. Canada prevented the mortgage cliff that would have seen existing borrowers pay more. The bad news? The rapid rate cuts and extended amortizations are only expected to help new buyers for a few weeks before further affordability erosion. That was the take in a new report from Oxford Economics, who doesn’t see affordability […]
