DECEMBER 15 2022 Another Month, Another Dip in Housing Statistics released today by the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) show home sales edged down in November. National home sales fell 3.3% between October and November, continuing the moderating sales trend that began last February on the precipice of unprecedented monetary policy tightening. Sales are down […]

DECEMBER 7 2022 The Bank of Canada Hiked Rates The Full 50 bps The Governing Council of the Bank of Canada raised its target for the overnight policy rate by 50 basis points today to 4.25% and signalled that the Council would “consider whether the policy interest rate needs to rise further to bring supply […]

DECEMBER 2 2022 Little Comfort for the Bank of Canada in Today’s Jobs Report Today’s Labour Force Survey for November will do little to assuage the Bank of Canada’s concern about inflation. While employment growth slowed to 10,100 net new jobs–down sharply from October’s reading–the report’s underlying details point to excess labour demand and rising […]

NOVEMBER 16 2022 Bank of Canada Will Not Be Happy With This Inflation Report Not only did the headline CPI inflation rate stall at 6.9% last month, but the core CPI numbers remain stubbornly high. Food inflation–a highly visible component–edged down slightly. Still, prices for food purchased from stores (+11.0%) continued to increase faster year over […]

NOVEMBER 15 2022 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 […]

NOVEMBER 4 2022 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 […]

OCTOBER 26 2022 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), […]

OCTOBER 19 2022 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 […]

OCTOBER 14 2022 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 […]

OCTOBER 7 2022 Tight Labour Market Fuels Higher Wages Today’s Labour Force Survey showed that employment grew in September for the first time in four months. Job gains remained moderate despite the high number of vacancies, indicating how tight the job market remains. Wage rates rose 5.2% year-over-year (y/y), the fourth consecutive month for which […]