US Fed Watch Fed waiting for data to break one way or the other With no scheduled press conference or forecast update at next week's FOMC meeting, expectations about the timing of the Fed's first rate hike will hinge on any changes to the accompanying statement... 22nd April 2015 · 1 min read
Canada Chart Pack January rate cut won't be enough insurance The futures market indicates that most investors are now convinced by the Bank of Canada's view that the January interest rate cut will be enough to prevent the economy from being derailed by the... 21st April 2015 · 1 min read
Canada Economics Update Continued fiscal restraint will slow economy down Although the Conservative-led government fulfilled its pledge to eliminate the Federal budget deficit, fiscal restraint at this juncture seems unnecessary considering the negative fallout from the... 21st April 2015 · 1 min read
US Economics Update Monetary Indicators Monitor (Mar.) With broad money growth expanding at close to 6% over the past year and bank loans growing at an even faster 8%, there is little evidence of a sustained slowdown in real economic growth or price... 20th April 2015 · 1 min read
US Housing Market Focus Has the mortgage market turned a corner? The weight of evidence suggests that the mortgage market is making a bigger contribution to the housing recovery than some of the most widely watched indicators imply. Combined with the prospect of... 20th April 2015 · 1 min read
Canada Economics Weekly Bank of Canada doubles down on growth outlook The Bank of Canada's policy statement last week showed that it isn't willing to fold on its optimistic growth predictions, despite being dealt a bad card in the first quarter. Instead, it decided to... 20th April 2015 · 1 min read
Canada Data Response Consumer Prices (Mar.) & Retail Sales (Feb.) The rise in the official core inflation rate to 2.4%, from 2.1%, was a surprise, but the details showed that this was largely due to pass-through effects from the lower Canadian dollar, rather than... 17th April 2015 · 1 min read
US Economics Weekly Recovery in retail sales has a lot further to run The weakness of real consumption growth in the first quarter is puzzling since the slump in energy prices effectively gave a large tax cut to households. In that respect, it appears to have parallels... 17th April 2015 · 1 min read
US Data Response Uni. of Mich. Consumer Confidence (Apr.) The rebound in the University of Michigan consumer confidence index in April which, aside from this January's reading, left it at its highest level since 2007 and well above the long-term average... 17th April 2015 · 1 min read
US Data Response Consumer Prices (Mar.) Although headline consumer prices increased by a slightly smaller than expected 0.2% m/m in March (the consensus forecast was 0.3% m/m), there are now clear signs of a firming in underlying inflation... 17th April 2015 · 1 min read
US Housing Market Data Response Housing Starts (Mar.) The modest rise in housing starts in March suggests that homebuilding has taken longer than expected to recover from February’s weather-related collapse. Nonetheless, this simply means that there is... 16th April 2015 · 1 min read
DM Valuations Monitor What is the relative valuation of euro-zone equities? The stock market in the euro-zone is much more attractively valued than in the US based on a comparison of cyclically-adjusted price/earnings (CAPE) ratios. However, its valuation is much less... 16th April 2015 · 1 min read
Canada Economics Update Bank of Canada holds policy rate at 0.75% The Bank of Canada kept its policy rate at 0.75% this morning, showing confidence that, after stalling in the first quarter, the economy will rebound in the second quarter and never look back. We... 15th April 2015 · 1 min read
Canada Data Response Manufacturing Sales (Feb.) February's larger than expected decline in manufacturing sales, which partly reflects some temporary shutdowns at auto assembly plants and bad weather, is further evidence that first quarter GDP... 15th April 2015 · 1 min read
Energy Data Response US Weekly Petroleum Status Report Today’s data add to evidence that US oil production may be slowing more quickly than the market had anticipated. Coupled with further signs of a revival in demand this should support prices in the... 15th April 2015 · 1 min read
US Data Response Industrial Production (Mar.) Although the 0.6% m/m decline in March industrial production was mainly due to the unwinding of the weather distortion, which triggered a spike in utilities output in February, the weakness in the... 15th April 2015 · 1 min read
