Canada Chart Pack Too soon to sound the all-clear for construction The turnaround in the housing market, with sales and prices rebounding in April, has raised hopes that construction will hold up despite elevated borrowing costs. Media reports suggest that buyer... 24th May 2023 · 8 mins read
Canada Chart Pack Housing turnaround makes the Bank’s job harder House prices edged up in March and the sharp rise in the sales-to-new listing ratio suggests there are further gains to come. As the improvement has been driven mainly by a collapse in new listings... 26th April 2023 · 8 mins read
Canada Chart Pack Lenders not immune to commercial property risks Canada’s banks do not face the same immediate risks as those elsewhere. The bank sector is far more concentrated than in the US, limiting the chance that problems at small lenders will trigger a... 30th March 2023 · 8 mins read
Canada Chart Pack Mixed signals from underlying inflation The January CPI data provided mixed signals about developments in underlying inflation. The CPI excluding food and energy and the CPI excluding the eight most volatile components each rose by just 0.1... 22nd February 2023 · 8 mins read
Canada Chart Pack Surveys point to much slower employment growth The sharp fall in hiring intentions in the Bank of Canada’s Business Outlook Survey suggests that the 104,000 surge in employment in December is not a sign of things to come. The survey points to a... 23rd January 2023 · 8 mins read
Canada Chart Pack Core inflation pressures still too strong for comfort The renewed rise in the three-month annualised rates of CPI-trim and CPI-median inflation in November call into question the idea that the Bank of Canada has already finished its tightening cycle... 21st December 2022 · 8 mins read
Canada Chart Pack Construction the next shoe to drop The big surprise so far this year has been the resilience of housing starts which, despite falling from their 10-month high of 300,000 annualised in September, remained at a relatively strong 267,000... 24th November 2022 · 8 mins read
Canada Chart Pack Canadian oil prices underperforming The rebound in global oil prices over the past month has not been matched by those in Canada, with Western Canadian Select (WCS) instead trading closer to $60 per barrel, as the discount between WCS... 25th October 2022 · 9 mins read
Canada Chart Pack Underlying inflation pressures easing The fall in headline inflation to 7.0% in August, from 7.6%, was largely due to energy price effects, but there were also some encouraging signs that underlying inflationary pressures are easing. The... 28th September 2022 · 9 mins read
Canada Chart Pack Rental boom keeps construction elevated The surge in interest rates so far this year has contributed to a sharp decline in home sales but, so far at least, that has not weighed on construction activity. Housing starts averaged 279,000... 24th August 2022 · 9 mins read
Canada Chart Pack Weaker new home sales to drag down construction The extent of the downturn in the housing market and broader residential investment will determine whether the economy enters a recession in the next 12 months, and in that respect there has been some... 26th July 2022 · 8 mins read
Canada Chart Pack Tight labour market pushing up wages The tight labour market is putting upward pressure on wages, with the Labour Force Survey showing a strong 1.0% m/m rise in average hourly earnings in May. While the annual rate of wage growth, at 3.9... 29th June 2022 · 8 mins read
Canada Chart Pack Core inflation still rising With core CPI inflation still rising, the Bank of Canada has no choice but to continue hiking its policy rate “forcefully’ back toward neutral. All three of the core measures tracked by the Bank are... 26th May 2022 · 9 mins read
Canada Chart Pack Productivity rebound to offset stronger wage growth The further fall in the unemployment rate in March, to a multi-decade low of 5.3%, raises the risk that a sharp acceleration in wage growth will exacerbate inflationary pressures, at a time when... 27th April 2022 · 8 mins read
Canada Chart Pack Market-implied policy tightening could topple housing The surge in interest rate expectations is a key risk to housing. We recently set out how, due to the much larger share of variable rate mortgages than before the pandemic, the Bank of Canada would... 23rd March 2022 · 9 mins read
Canada Chart Pack Inflationary pressures broadening The evidence of broadening inflationary pressures and the further rise in oil prices suggest that the balance of risks to our inflation forecast lies to the upside. The January consumer price data... 23rd February 2022 · 8 mins read
