Canada Economics Weekly Household sector sensitive to higher long-term rates The recent improvement in the global economic outlook and changing prospects for US monetary policy in particular have prompted us to revise our global bond yield forecasts moderately higher... 24th June 2013 · 1 min read
Canada Data Response Consumer Price Index (May) & Retail Sales (Apr.) With the official core inflation measure unchanged at a worryingly low 1.1% in May, the output gap would appear to be larger than the Bank of Canada is willing to admit. If, as we expect, economic... 21st June 2013 · 1 min read
Canada Economics Update Households' showing signs of borrowing fatigue Although our seasonally-adjusted measure of the household debt-to-income ratio nudged higher in the first quarter of this year, the trend appears to have stabilised. This suggests that there is even... 20th June 2013 · 1 min read
Canada Economics Update Monetary policy to remain highly accommodative Governor Stephen Poloz's debut public speech, which focused on the fragile global recovery and lack of business confidence, touched on our long-held concerns about Canada's economic recovery and why... 19th June 2013 · 1 min read
Canada Economics Weekly Higher unit labour costs are a false alarm The rise in the annual growth rate of unit labour costs has more to do with declining labour productivity, rather than any acceleration in the growth rate of labour compensation. Looking ahead, we... 17th June 2013 · 1 min read
Canada Data Response Manufacturing Sales (Apr.) With most attention focused on the housing sector, the plight of the manufacturing sector has gone largely unnoticed. But manufacturing sales volumes have been trending lower for more than a year now... 14th June 2013 · 1 min read
Canada Data Response Teranet-National Bank House Prices (May) In spite of the sharp 1.1% m/m increase, the annual growth rate of Teranet house prices held steady at 2.0% in May. For now, both the past decline in existing home sales and the steady rise in the... 12th June 2013 · 1 min read
Canada Economics Update Canada's housing downturn far from over Recent housing evidence does not convince us that Canada's housing downturn has stabilised. As housing demand remains sluggish in certain markets and softens further in others, we expect the still... 10th June 2013 · 1 min read
Canada Economics Weekly Time running out for policymakers' hopes of rebalancing It is becoming more clear that sluggish global demand and volatile commodity prices will outlast the willingness and ability of households' to provide debt-fuelled support to economic growth. Without... 10th June 2013 · 1 min read
Canada Data Response Labour Force Survey (May) The spectacular 95,000 increase in employment in May is almost the strongest on record and obviously makes up for the unusually soft figures over the previous several months. But the recent volatile... 7th June 2013 · 1 min read
Canada Chart Pack GDP growth to be pulled down by domestic weakness The pick-up in first-quarter GDP growth to 2.5% annualised, propelled by an energy-driven rebound in net exports, masks the undertow from the slowing domestic economy. Government spending restraint... 5th June 2013 · 1 min read
Canada Data Response International Merchandise Trade (Apr.) April's encouraging 0.7% m/m advance in export volumes, following the previous month's much stronger gain, indicates that exports are holding up and that external trade may continue to buffer GDP... 4th June 2013 · 1 min read
Canada Economics Weekly Canada's housing downturn mirroring US slump Home building in Canada is on an ominous downward slope, similar in many ways to what happened in the early stages of the slump in the US. For this reason we think it is premature for policymakers to... 3rd June 2013 · 1 min read
Canada Data Response GDP (Q1 2013) The pick-up in GDP growth to 2.5% annualised in the first quarter is unlikely to be sustained because it was partly due to a one-off rebound in energy exports. Those exports are now almost completely... 31st May 2013 · 1 min read
Canada Economics Update Business confidence falters on insufficient domestic demand The further decline in the small and medium-sized business confidence in May suggests that second-quarter GDP growth may have slowed down to less than half the estimated 2.2% annualised in the first... 30th May 2013 · 1 min read
Canada Economics Update Wages and salaries less supportive to consumption growth Political unrest, a fragile banking sector and a weak fiscal position are all likely to weigh on Bahrain’s economy over the next few years. As a result, we expect it to be one of the worst performers... 29th May 2013 · 1 min read
