Insurance Business - Bethan Moorcraft (2020-12-07)
Enter, rate comparison websites. They’re all the rage in the UK and the USA, where consumers use comparison sites to shop for insurance much like Canadians do when comparing travel costs on sites like Expedia and Trivago. But Canadians are slowly starting to catch on to the insurance comparison trend. They’re searching for and finding platforms like LowestRates.ca, which is enabling consumers to compare insurance premium prices across a number of product lines, primarily in auto and home insurance.
G&M - Clare O'Hara (2019-10-22)
Just days after Bank of Nova Scotia unveiled its hefty $2.6-billion bid to buy MD Financial Management last May, Leo Salom called together what he calls his “SWAT team.”
G&M - Tim Kiladze (2019-10-22)
Two Canadian pension funds are teaming up to acquire AltaGas Canada Inc., paying more than double the company’s initial public offering price only one year ago.
CBC - Melissa Bennaardo (2019-10-22)
It tweeted that the technical issue affected charges made between Oct. 18 to 20.
Reuters - Silvia Aloisi, Gianluca Semeraro (2019-10-22)
Italy’s biggest bank is looking at whether it can distance itself from its home country’s stagnating economy and fractious politics by putting some of its most prized assets under one roof in Germany, people familiar with the matter said.
WSJ - Nicole Friedman (2019-10-22)
WSJ - Michael S. Derby (2019-10-22)
The Federal Reserve Bank of New York injected $58.15 billion in overnight liquidity into financial markets.
Insurance Business - Bethan Moorcraft (2019-10-22)
ENCON Group, Inc. has today announced a major rebrand. The Canadian managing general agent (MGA), which is part of the global Victor Group, will now be known as Victor Canada. This announcement follows the larger global unification and rebrand of The Schinnerer Group to Victor Insurance Holdings announced in 2018.
Insurance Business - Alicja Grzadkowska (2019-10-22)
Round two of cannabis legalization is finally upon us, after new regulations for cannabis edibles, extracts, and topicals came into effect on October 17. The regulations around this growing industry will be the subject of much discussion at the Cannabis Cover masterclass in Toronto this November, but, for now, a legal expert has shared his insight on the field of changes ahead and the expected impact legalization will have on both the insurance and cannabis industries.
Canadian Underwriter - Greg Mechbach (2019-10-22)
Does the federal government have the power to prohibit insurers from asking consumers questions that carriers say are material to their risk?
Canadian Underwriter - Jason Contant (2019-10-22)
Although the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) in the United States has its shortcomings, a similar program could benefit Canada if steps were taken to avoid its flaws, suggested an article published in MSA’s Quarterly Outlook Report for Q2 2019.
G&M - James Bradshaw (2019-10-21)
Technology advances are upending tens of thousands of jobs across the global financial sector, including at Canada’s big banks.
G&M - Megan Davies (2019-10-21)
The world’s most powerful policy-makers are struggling to alleviate the pain of a slowing global economy with few levers left to pull and growing concern that one of them, negative interest rates, already is creating problems of its own.
G&M - Michael Babad (2019-10-21)
Mark McCormick believes the currency market is “underpricing” the possibility of a minority Liberal government propped up by the New Democratic Party.
G&M - Dhara Ranashinghe (2019-10-21)
German government bonds with their sub-zero yields have lured foreign inflows for four straight months. Talk is that it’s reserve managers from Switzerland and China who are among those paying to lend money to Berlin.
G&M - Rob Carrick (2019-10-21)
There was a surprising twist when a personal finance newsletter called The Lean House Effect recently pitted credit card travel points against cashback for the title of best reward program.
CBC - Erica Johnson (2019-10-21)
It's estimated GozNym stole over $100 million from some 40,000 victims. It's an example of the sort of malware that might be responsible for the hacks against Lidhar, Hamilton and Chapman.
FP - Robert Hutton and Kitty Donaldson (2019-10-21)
On Friday, French President Emmanuel Macron said one shouldn’t be granted. But EU officials say that despite Macron, who made similar noises before approving a Brexit delay in April, it’s unlikely that he or any other leader would refuse another one, particularly if the U.K. was headed for a general election.
Reuters - Kylie MacLellan, Paul Sandle (2019-10-21)
The British government insisted on Sunday the country will leave the European Union on Oct. 31 despite a letter that Prime Minister Boris Johnson was forced by parliament to send to the bloc requesting a Brexit delay.
Bloomberg - Matthew Burgess (2019-10-21)
WSJ - Kate O'Keeffe (2019-10-21)
Christine Lagarde, who is set to take over as president of the European Central Bank, said in an interview that the U.S. risks diminishing its role as a global leader and warned of dire consequences of its trade war with China.
WSJ - Lisa Ward (2019-10-21)
Finextra - Finextra (2019-10-21)
"In many cases, ML development has passed the initial development phase, and is entering more advanced stages of deployment," states the BofE. "One third of ML applications are used for a considerable share of activities in a specific business area."
Better Dwelling - Stephen Punwasi (2019-10-21)
Canadian real estate prices are soaring, but only a few markets have detached from reality. The ones that have though, boy oh boy – have they ever detached. New numbers obtained from IMF staff, show the gap between prices and fundamentals. For the most part, Canadian real estate prices can be explained through access to easy credit. Hamilton, Toronto, and Vancouver are notable exceptions, and may be 50% overvalued.
Digital Transactions - Kevin Woodward (2019-10-21)
Issuer and acquirer American Express Co. said its global third-quarter discount rate—what merchants pay to accept the brand’s credit cards—was 2.39%, a slight increase from 2.38% a year ago.
G&M - David Berman (2019-10-18)
Can voters affect stock prices in Canada? Investors are about to find out.
G&M - Tamsin McMahon (2019-10-18)
Facebook Inc. chief executive Mark Zuckerberg signalled Thursday that he intends to push back more aggressively against lawmakers’ efforts to regulate the social-media giant, arguing in a rare public speech in Washington that U.S. tech companies play a critical role in safeguarding democratic values online.
G&M - Clare O'Hara (2019-10-18)
The day Canada legalized marijuana, the Horizons Marijuana Life Sciences Index ETF was the world’s first and largest investment fund in cannabis stocks. Exactly one year later, it is far from the biggest, and its returns are the worst.
FP - Tom Bradley (2019-10-18)
I’ve been doing a lot of client reviews lately and the ‘R’ word has come up in every one. I’m referring to the next recession.
FP - Geoff Zochodne (2019-10-18)
Canada’s financial intelligence unit says it has taken a preliminary look at the issue of money laundering in connection to the legalization of recreational marijuana, but that it has yet to conduct an “in-depth” analysis of the subject.
Reuters - Reuters (2019-10-18)
Individual and business customers will be charged a rate of -0.75% on cash balances above 2 million Swiss francs ($2.02 million), Switzerland’s second biggest lender said. Balances of less than 2 million francs will be unaffected.
Reuters - Kevin Yao (2019-10-18)
Still, most analysts believe the scope for aggressive stimulus is limited in an economy already saddled with piles of debt following previous easing cycles, which have sent housing prices sharply higher.
Reuters - Elizabeth Dilts Marshall (2019-10-18)
Over the past decade or so, Goldman Sachs Group Inc has watched its annual trading profits fall 84%, as post-financial crisis regulations upended Wall Street. Now, bank executives are hoping they have figured out the key to a turnaround: asking traders to be more like investment bankers.
Bloomberg - Patricia Hurtado (2019-10-18)
Better Dwelling - Daniel Wong (2019-10-18)
Variable rate mortgages are when the borrower sees the interest rate fluctuate. Payments usually stay the same, but the amount that goes towards interest fluctuates. If rates rise during the term, the borrower pays more interest, and less principal. If rates fall during the term, borrowers pay less interest, and more principal. At the end of the term, depending on rates, you may have a bigger or smaller mortgage balance than expected.
CBC - Sophia Harris (2019-10-17)
Canada's privacy commissioner has concluded that Loblaws initially requested too much personal information from some customers before they could collect their $25 gift card — offered to make up for the company's role in a bread price-fixing scandal.
CBC - Muriel Draaisma (2019-10-17)
The Royal LePage Newcomer 2019 Survey, which was commissioned by the real estate company, found that newcomers spend about three years in Canada before buying a home and that 75 per cent of newcomers arrive with savings or cash to help buy a home.
CBC - Jonathon Gatehouse (2019-10-17)
"These barriers prevent the free flow of people, goods and services across provincial borders. They make it more expensive to run a business. They hurt consumers with higher prices and less competition and they discourage and frustrate big dreaming innovators who want to change the world," Scheer said during a campaign stop in Quebec City. "It should not be easier to trade with other countries than between Canadian provinces. We are one free country. We should have one free market."
FP - Kevin Carmichael (2019-10-17)
Not in Canada. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose 1.9 per cent from September 2018, pretty close to the Bank of Canada’s target of two per cent. And that’s kind of what you’d expect. Last week, Statistics Canada reported that the jobless rate dropped to 5.5 per cent in October, one of the lowest rates on record, and that the average hourly wage surged 4.3 per cent from a year earlier, one of the fastest increases since early 2009.
FP - Barbara Shecter (2019-10-17)
“Canada is the only G7 nation that doesn’t have any type of federal involvement to help the insurance industry as a whole deal with mega catastrophes,” said Anne Kleffner, a professor at the University of Calgary’s Haskayne School of Business.
Reuters - Reuters (2019-10-17)
Britain clinched a Brexit deal with the European Union on Thursday, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said, just a few hours before the start of a summit of the bloc’s leaders in Brussels.
Reuters - Reuters (2019-10-17)
Babej joined Citi in 2010 as co-head of the financial institutions group after having previously worked at Deutsche Bank (DBKGn.DE) and investment bank Lazard (LAZ.N), according to the memo sent to staff by Citi global CEO Mike Corbat.
Insurance Business - Alicja Grzadkowska (2019-10-17)
“In insurance, data is fundamental to what we do in terms of assessing risk and pricing, and there’s been an awful lot that’s gone on with regards to data, particularly as it applies to commercial insurance,” said Sean Ringsted (pictured), executive vice president, chief digital officer, and chief risk officer for Chubb Group, pointing to the small business segment that has been traditionally underserved by insurance. “You have a growing number of small businesses and if you think about an entrepreneur or a start-up, they don’t have much time, cash flow is important, and they want to be able to buy that policy and get it wrapped up quickly. That is really driving a lot of the innovations and advancements around the use of data.”
Insurance-Portal.ca - Alain Theriault (2019-10-17)
Low interest rates and uncertainty in the equity markets have lowered the expectations for long-term asset returns for DB pension plan portfolios, says an actuarial firm.
Canadian Underwriter - Greg Meckbach (2019-10-17)
“We are well above where we typically are for water elevations in Lake St. Clair and the Detroit River,” Andrew Dowie, executive initiatives coordinator for the City of Windsor, told Canadian Underwriter Tuesday.
WSJ - Yuliya Chernova (2019-10-17)
Reinsurance company Munich Re AG has invested $250 million in Next Insurance Inc. in a funding round that valued the small-business insurance provider at more than $1 billion.
WSJ - Telis Demos (2019-10-17)
Flyover banking is the best thing going for big lenders right now.
G&M - James Bradshaw (2019-10-17)
Laurentian Bank of Canada has hired Kelsey Gunderson to lead its capital-markets business, snapping up an experienced banker who became a free agent earlier this year after an executive shuffle at BMO Nesbitt Burns Inc.
FP - Pete Schroeder (2019-10-17)
The International Monetary Fund heightened its warnings for the corporate debt market on Wednesday, as investors search for richer returns in riskier assets after recent interest rate cuts by central banks.
G&M - MICHAEL FORSYTHE, DAVID ENRICH AND ALEXANDRA STEVENSON (2019-10-15)
It was a brazen campaign to win business in China by charming and enriching the country’s political elite.
G&M - JOE CASTALDO AND ALEXANDRA POSADZKI (2019-10-15)
Users who lost money with bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange QuadrigaCX could have to wait until spring or summer of next year before receiving any funds back, according to two sources familiar with the matter.
Finextra - Finextra (2019-10-15)
Mastercard and Visa were both known to be weighing their ongoing participation as members of the Libra Association at the time of PayPal's departure. Matters came to a head late last week when two Senate Democrats upped the ante, urging the two card schemes and Stripe to pull their support for the controversial project.
Finextra - Finextra (2019-10-15)
The backers of the new DirectBooks platform include Bank of America, Barclays, BNP Paribas, Citi, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley, and Wells Fargo.
Finextra - Finextra (2019-10-15)
The search for new capital comes just weeks after Revolut secured a global deal with Visa that would see the fintech move into 24 new markets and boost staff numbers to 3500.
Finextra - Finextra (2019-10-15)
How can the established players in financial services deliver meaningful game-changing innovation? What are the challenges in building this from scratch and does they key lie in partnerships with fintechs and start-ups?
G&M - Andrew Willis (2019-10-15)
Most investors dread the prospect of a recession. Morguard Corp. chief executive Rai Sahi, on the other hand, is setting up his company to take advantage of an inevitable downturn in real estate markets.
FP - Victor Ferreira (2019-10-15)
The legalization of cannabis in Canada was supposed to be a catalyst — the most powerful one yet, investors and analysts alike thought — that would launch companies in the young but potent industry to new heights. Instead, nearly one year later, it has been a nightmare.
FP - Kevin Carmichael (2019-10-15)
The more the Bank of Canada sifts through the data left behind by the housing boom, the clearer it becomes that the economy would be in trouble if we weren’t so willing to borrow.
FP - Reuters (2019-10-15)
Fidelity Investments on Thursday eliminated commissions on online trades of U.S. stocks, exchange traded funds (ETFs) and options, becoming the latest brokerage to cut trading fees to compete with new entrants in the market.
NY Times - Kate Conger (2019-10-15)
NY Times - Alexandra Stevenson (2019-10-15)
Confidential documents reveal the troubled German bank’s brazen campaign to win business in China by charming and enriching the political elite.
Reuters - Andrew MacAskill, Sinead Cruise, Huw Jones (2019-10-15)
From the pinnacle of the City of London’s largest skyscraper, Stuart Lipton is wagering a $1.2 billion bet that the British capital remains a master of the international financial universe no matter what happens with Brexit.
Reuters - Lawrence Delevingne, Peter Hobson (2019-10-15)
Britain’s financial services regulator is examining allegations of precious metals market manipulation by JPMorgan Chase & Co traders following criminal charges by U.S. authorities, according to two people familiar with the matter.
Bloomberg - Bloomberg (2019-10-15)
From insurance to banking apps, Qatar is developing new business ecosystems.
Bloomberg - Jess Shankleman (2019-10-15)
More time needed as deal hanging in the balance as of Tuesday.
WSJ - Annamaria Androitis (2019-10-15)
Lenders are shelling out for generous rewards programs for affluent cardholders, and they are charging higher interest rates to make up for it.
WSJ - Liz Hoffman, Ben Eisen (2019-10-15)
Investors will get an early readout on the impact of the Federal Reserve’s recent interest-rate cuts when big U.S. banks report third-quarter earnings this week.
WSJ - Telis Demos (2019-10-15)
The Wall Street arms of banks won’t be giving their Main Street counterparts much help this earnings season.
WSJ - James Mackintosh (2019-10-15)
The Federal Reserve has been clear that its latest Treasury-buying plan shouldn’t be construed as QE, or quantitative easing. They may have a point.
G&M - CP (2019-10-15)
Home sales in Canada’s big cities continued a rebound in September with a 15.5 per cent increase in sales compared with a year ago, according to the Canadian Real Estate Association.
G&M - MARC JONES AND DHARA RANASINGHE (2019-10-15)
St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank President James Bullard said global trade and other risks remain high for a U.S. economy that may slow more sharply than expected.
G&M - Rachelle Younglai (2019-10-15)
Canada’s home sales jumped 15.5 per cent in September compared with last year, with rising activity and record prices in Toronto and its surrounding suburbs adding to affordability concerns that have become a focus in the federal election campaign.
G&M - Christine Dobby (2019-10-15)
The Conservative Party says it would restrict large payouts to executives at bankrupt companies with underfunded pension plans, a move aimed at curbing the unpopular practice of paying management retention bonuses, even as employees lose their jobs and benefits.
G&M - James Bradshaw (2019-10-15)
Laurentian Bank of Canada has hired Kelsey Gunderson to lead its capital-markets business, snapping up an experienced banker who became a free agent earlier this year after an executive shuffle at BMO Nesbitt Burns Inc.
G&M - PETE SCHROEDER AND BHARATH MANJESHR (2019-10-15)
Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc is seeking permission from the Federal Reserve to boost its stake in Bank of America Corp above the 10 per cent level, according to an application document provided by the Fed on Tuesday.
G&M - ABHINAV RAMNARAYAN AND YORUK BAHCELI (2019-10-15)
A growing number of private equity firms are taking advantage of Europe’s buoyant bond market to extract money from companies they hold by loading them with debt, prompting some investors to warn the fixed income rally is nearing its peak.
G&M - Rob Carrick (2019-10-15)
I kind of am. I have one tax-free savings account at a robo-adviser, one at an online brokerage and one at an online bank. There may be others…
FP - Zane Schwartz (2019-10-15)
The Bank of Canada is considering launching a digital currency that would help it combat the “direct threat” of cryptocurrencies and collect more information on how people spend their money, The Logic has learned.
FP - Geoff Zochodne (2019-10-15)
Canadian consumers have greatly increased their use of financial technology, such as payment or budgeting apps, but trail their global counterparts in adoption across every age and income bracket, according to findings from accounting firm Ernst & Young.
Reuters - Imani Moise, Elizabeth Dilts Marshall (2019-10-15)
Quarterly results from four of the largest U.S. banks on Tuesday showed that American consumers are helping to prop up the economy, even as recession fears have led businesses to pull back on spending and borrowing.
FT - Chris Giles (2019-10-15)
Global growth is set to fall to its slowest rate since the financial crisis this year, the IMF said on Tuesday, as it warned that the self-inflicted wounds of the US and China’s trade war had created a “precarious” economic situation.
FT - Hannah Murphy (2019-10-15)
“Everyone will play their role,” the Facebook executive said of the 28 initial founding members of his Libra scheme.
FT - Hudson Lockett in Hong Kong and Eva Szalay (2019-10-15)
A decade ago, China launched a high-profile challenge to the dominance of the US dollar, projecting a greater role for the renminbi in the global financial system.
FT - Laura Noonan (2019-10-15)
“JPMorgan is best in class of global banks and it shows this quarter,” said Wells Fargo analyst Mike Mayo.
Better Dwelling - Daniel Wong (2019-10-15)
The balance of reverse mortgage debt reached a new all-time high last month. Filings show $3.78 billion in reverse mortgage debt outstanding in July, up 0.98% from the month before. The balance is just over 26.24% higher than the same month last year. Over the past year, reverse mortgage debt increase by over a quarter. That’s huge growth for any segment.
G&M - Clare O'Hara (2019-10-11)
Mutual fund advisers will be required next year to complete continuing education credits in order to keep their licence, putting them on par with other certified professionals in the financial services industry as the sector looks to increase transparency.
G&M - Geoffrey York (2019-10-11)
The U.S. Treasury Department has imposed sanctions on South Africa’s wealthy Gupta brothers, describing them as “a significant corruption network” that used bribery and inflated contracts to steal money and wield illicit influence over the South African government.
FP - Victor Ferreira (2019-10-11)
According to the National Bank of Canada, the Canadian ETF industry has a combined AUM of $188 billion when the reported AUMs of all the ETFs are added up. But when double counting is removed, that figure falls to $173 billion, a decrease of nearly eight per cent.
FP - Reuters (2019-10-11)
Fidelity Investments on Thursday eliminated commissions on online trades of U.S. stocks, exchange traded funds (ETFs) and options, becoming the latest brokerage to cut trading fees to compete with new entrants in the market.
FP - Philip Cross (2019-10-11)
Despite a return to deficit spending intended to boost the economy, Canada’s annual real GDP growth over the past four years has remained stuck in the range of 1.0 to 2.0 per cent, where it has been mired for most of the past decade. In a recent paper for the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, I summarized how the persistence of mediocre growth for over a decade is a sobering reminder of the failure of extraordinary monetary and fiscal stimulus to lift long-term growth rates.
Better Dwelling - Better Dwelling (2019-10-11)
If compared to the population growth, that impressive GDP really isn’t impressive. In fact, a notable Canadian economist called the GDP a “growth mirage.” Real GDP per capita was $55,480 in Q2 2019, up just 0.2% from the year before. Not exactly the massive growth typical of a booming economy.
Reuters - Matt Scuffham (2019-10-11)
Deutsche Bank says it does not have copies of U.S. President Donald Trump’s tax returns, a U.S. appeals court said on Thursday, closing one possible avenue for the Democratic-led U.S. House of Representatives to obtain the returns.
Bloomberg - Natalie Wong (2019-10-11)
NY Times - Jeanna Smialek (2019-10-11)
Lael Brainard, a Fed Board governor, said that while she supported some of the adjustments approved on Thursday, the overall package of changes went too far.
FT - Gillian Tett (2019-10-11)
What the heck is happening in the Cayman Islands? That is a question often asked in relation to corporate tax.
G&M - CP (2019-10-10)
The personal information of about 37,000 Canadians held by TransUnion may have been compromised this past summer, leaving both of Canada’s credit monitoring agencies with data blemishes on their record.
CBC - Don Pittis (2019-10-10)
This week hints of a global recession came from Montreal. Speaking at McGill University, the new boss of the World Bank, David Malpass, warned the global economy is heading to fresh lows.
CBC - Katie Breen (2019-10-10)
Clarke opened an account with the Royal Bank of Canada before getting his cannabis licence, saying he was a cannabis accessories wholesaler. A few weeks ago, Clarke said, RBC deemed his business "high risk" and sent a letter saying it would be cancelling his account.
FP - Victor Ferreira (2019-10-10)
The legalization of cannabis in Canada was supposed to be a catalyst — the most powerful one yet, investors and analysts alike thought — that would launch companies in the young but potent industry to new heights. Instead, nearly one year later, it has been a nightmare.
FP - Geoff Zochodne (2019-10-10)
The biggest insurance brokerage in Canada has been on a dealmaking blitz that may only be about halfway done, according to the company’s Ontario chairman.
Bobsguide - Bobsguide (2019-10-10)
“Blockchain evangelists will not want to hear that it is all around a cost problem, but the reality is that the industry does have a cost problem, whether it is in trade finance, whether it is securities settlements, whether it is in core banking operations,” he said. “Certainly, if you look at a lot of the initiatives in blockchain today have all been around the securities space, a lot of pilots around issuance and all sorts of things, but nobody has really found that commercial model.” On the other hand, the trade finance market could be ripe for adoption of the technology because of its high dependency on paper, according to Scott.
Finextra - Finextra (2019-10-10)
Challenger bank Starling has partnered with digital insurance platform Nimbla to offer its 65,000 small business customers the ability to protect themselves from financial losses caused by bankrupt clients.
Finextra - Finextra (2019-10-10)
Cuvva, a UK startup pioneering hourly insurance policies, has snagged Lloyd's of London chair Bruce Carnegie-Brown as its new chairman.
G&M - AP (2019-10-10)
Rep. Maxine Waters, the California Democrat who heads the House Financial Services Committee, announced Wednesday that Zuckerberg will testify at a hearing by the panel on Oct. 23. The focus will be on Facebook’s plan to create a digital currency and its role in housing. The company agreed in a legal settlement in March to overhaul its ad-targeting systems to prevent discrimination in housing, credit and employment ads.
G&M - James Bradshaw (2019-10-10)
A pricing war has rattled the U.S. discount stock brokerage market, putting Toronto-Dominion Bank in a strategic bind as Canada’s second-largest lender mulls ways to mitigate the damage.
Better Dwelling - Daniel Wong (2019-10-09)
Canadians are pushing an already epic pile of debt to new all-time highs. The balance of credit outstanding reached $2.23 trillion in August, up 0.55% from the month before. This represents an increase of 3.8%, when compared to the same month last year. The total is a new all-time high, and the 12-month growth is rising year-over-year for the first time in months.
G&M - Mark Mackinnon (2019-10-09)
The prosecutors, who allege tens of millions of dollars were siphoned off a 2013 deal to install rail-signalling equipment in the former Soviet republic, were granted access to the records of nine Swiss bank accounts associated with shell companies controlled by a quartet of Russian businessmen who partnered with the Canadian transportation giant on the project.
CBC - CP (2019-10-09)
Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. says the pace of housing starts in September slowed compared with August.
FP - Doug Alexander (2019-10-09)
The Canadian lender expects to reach its goal of being a “Top 10” North American investment bank “dramatically” ahead of its five-year deadline, Dan Barclay, chief executive officer and group head of BMO Capital Markets, said in an interview at the firm’s Toronto headquarters.
Reuters - Jonathan Stempel (2019-10-09)
The dual U.S.-Russian citizen has said he intended the code only for his own use. His tale helped inspire Michael Lewis’ 2014 bestseller “Flash Boys,” on the rise of high-frequency trading in U.S. equities.
Bloomberg - Jim Bianco (2019-10-09)
WSJ - Nick Timiraos (2019-10-09)
The Federal Reserve will provide new clues about its thinking on where to set interest rates when it releases the minutes of its Sept. 17-18 meeting on Wednesday at 2 p.m. EDT.
FT - Chris Giles (2019-10-09)
The OECD has proposed a global shake-up of corporate taxation, overturning a century of rules that had allowed digital groups such as Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google to shift profits around the world to minimise their tax bills.
FT - Joe Rennison (2019-10-09)
Ten minutes after Federal Reserve chair Jay Powell insisted that the central bank restarting its Treasury purchases was “in no way” the same as the post-financial crisis policy of quantitative easing, one Wall St analyst sent a note to his clients saying that the new strategy “sure sounds like QE”.
G&M - Michael Babad (2019-10-09)
It’s not particularly sharp, and nothing like the fast pace of the past, but mortgage borrowing is picking up. Given Canada’s history with swollen debts and inflated housing markets, that bears watching.
G&M - ALEXANDRA POSADZKI AND JOE CASTALDO (2019-10-08)
The widow of Gerald Cotten, the late founder of QuadrigaCX, has reached a settlement to transfer “nearly all" of her assets to the trustee overseeing the cryptocurrency exchange’s bankruptcy.
G&M - Michael Babad (2019-10-08)
“The Liberals would loosen fiscal policy by more than the Conservatives if they won October’s election, but neither party’s plans would seriously transform the economic outlook,” said Stephen Brown, senior Canada economist at Capital Economics.
G&M - Reuters (2019-10-08)
Euro zone banks face growing pressure on earnings from a maturing business cycle, and their projections for lukewarm earnings in the coming years may still be too optimistic, the European Central Bank said on Monday.
G&M - Michael Babad (2019-10-08)
With a car in every driveway, vehicles lasting longer and so many other modes of transportation, how will the auto market fare?
G&M - ALWYN SCOTT AND ANKIT AJMERA (2019-10-08)
General Electric Co. said on Monday it would freeze pensions for about 20,000 salaried U.S. employees and take other related moves to help the ailing conglomerate cut debt and reduce its retirement-fund deficit by up to US$8-billion.
By freezing the U.S. pensions, prepaying about US$4.5-billion in contributions due in 2021 and 2022 and offering lump sums to about 100,000 retirees, GE said it expects to cut pension underfunding by US$5-billion to US$8-billion.
CBC - Kyle Bakx (2019-10-08)
The decision affects five companies: Russia's Tatneft PAO and Canada's Cenovus Energy, Suncor Energy, Husky Energy and Imperial Oil. Recently, KLP sold $77 million in shares of those companies.
FP - Oliver Gill (2019-10-08)
A confidential report, prepared just days before the 178-year-old company’s failure and seen by The Daily Telegraph, lays bare how an insolvency would wreak havoc across the travel sector, leaving huge debts owed to hoteliers, intermediaries and other suppliers. Many suppliers could expect to recoup just 3.4 pence in every pound owed to them. Bondholders, whose debts totalled more than 1 billion pounds, may only recover 2.3 pence.
Reuters - Sinead Cruise, Lawrence White (2019-10-08)
The slow progress highlights the challenge banks and borrowers face as regulators attempt to end the use of Libor, a benchmark embedded in as much as $340 trillion financial contracts worldwide from home loans to complicated derivatives.
Reuters - Francesco Guarascio (2019-10-08)
“Europe needs a common approach on crypto-assets such as Libra. I intend to propose new legislation on this,” Valdis Dombrovskis told EU lawmakers in his confirmation hearing.
Reuters - Kristin Ridley (2019-10-08)
Rohan Ramchandani, the former European head of Citigroup’s forex spot market trading desk, alleges in a lawsuit filed on Wednesday that Citigroup made false and “gravely derogatory” assertions against him to government investigators and the media after firing him in 2014 without cause.
Bloomberg - Divya Balji, Aoyon Ashraf (2019-10-08)
Bloomberg - Andreas Kluth (2019-10-08)
FT - Daniel Shane, Alce Woodhouse (2019-10-08)
Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing has abandoned its £32bn offer for the London Stock Exchange Group, ending its attempt to create a global capital markets operator and break up the LSE’s rival deal for Refinitiv.
Better Dwelling - Daniel Wong (2019-10-08)
Outstanding household credit reached a new all-time high, with both major segments showing growth. Most of that growth is coming from mortgage credit, which is currently accelerating.
WSJ - Michael S. Derby (2019-10-22)
The Federal Reserve Bank of New York injected $58.15 billion in overnight liquidity into financial markets.
G&M - Michael Babad (2019-10-21)
Mark McCormick believes the currency market is “underpricing” the possibility of a minority Liberal government propped up by the New Democratic Party.
FP - Robert Hutton and Kitty Donaldson (2019-10-21)
On Friday, French President Emmanuel Macron said one shouldn’t be granted. But EU officials say that despite Macron, who made similar noises before approving a Brexit delay in April, it’s unlikely that he or any other leader would refuse another one, particularly if the U.K. was headed for a general election.
Reuters - Kylie MacLellan, Paul Sandle (2019-10-21)
The British government insisted on Sunday the country will leave the European Union on Oct. 31 despite a letter that Prime Minister Boris Johnson was forced by parliament to send to the bloc requesting a Brexit delay.
WSJ - Kate O'Keeffe (2019-10-21)
Christine Lagarde, who is set to take over as president of the European Central Bank, said in an interview that the U.S. risks diminishing its role as a global leader and warned of dire consequences of its trade war with China.
Better Dwelling - Stephen Punwasi (2019-10-21)
Canadian real estate prices are soaring, but only a few markets have detached from reality. The ones that have though, boy oh boy – have they ever detached. New numbers obtained from IMF staff, show the gap between prices and fundamentals. For the most part, Canadian real estate prices can be explained through access to easy credit. Hamilton, Toronto, and Vancouver are notable exceptions, and may be 50% overvalued.
G&M - David Berman (2019-10-18)
Can voters affect stock prices in Canada? Investors are about to find out.
CBC - Muriel Draaisma (2019-10-17)
The Royal LePage Newcomer 2019 Survey, which was commissioned by the real estate company, found that newcomers spend about three years in Canada before buying a home and that 75 per cent of newcomers arrive with savings or cash to help buy a home.
CBC - Jonathon Gatehouse (2019-10-17)
"These barriers prevent the free flow of people, goods and services across provincial borders. They make it more expensive to run a business. They hurt consumers with higher prices and less competition and they discourage and frustrate big dreaming innovators who want to change the world," Scheer said during a campaign stop in Quebec City. "It should not be easier to trade with other countries than between Canadian provinces. We are one free country. We should have one free market."
Reuters - Reuters (2019-10-17)
Britain clinched a Brexit deal with the European Union on Thursday, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said, just a few hours before the start of a summit of the bloc’s leaders in Brussels.
Bloomberg - Jess Shankleman (2019-10-15)
More time needed as deal hanging in the balance as of Tuesday.
WSJ - James Mackintosh (2019-10-15)
The Federal Reserve has been clear that its latest Treasury-buying plan shouldn’t be construed as QE, or quantitative easing. They may have a point.
G&M - CP (2019-10-15)
Home sales in Canada’s big cities continued a rebound in September with a 15.5 per cent increase in sales compared with a year ago, according to the Canadian Real Estate Association.
G&M - Rachelle Younglai (2019-10-15)
Canada’s home sales jumped 15.5 per cent in September compared with last year, with rising activity and record prices in Toronto and its surrounding suburbs adding to affordability concerns that have become a focus in the federal election campaign.
FP - Zane Schwartz (2019-10-15)
The Bank of Canada is considering launching a digital currency that would help it combat the “direct threat” of cryptocurrencies and collect more information on how people spend their money, The Logic has learned.
FT - Hudson Lockett in Hong Kong and Eva Szalay (2019-10-15)
A decade ago, China launched a high-profile challenge to the dominance of the US dollar, projecting a greater role for the renminbi in the global financial system.
Better Dwelling - Daniel Wong (2019-10-15)
The balance of reverse mortgage debt reached a new all-time high last month. Filings show $3.78 billion in reverse mortgage debt outstanding in July, up 0.98% from the month before. The balance is just over 26.24% higher than the same month last year. Over the past year, reverse mortgage debt increase by over a quarter. That’s huge growth for any segment.
FP - Philip Cross (2019-10-11)
Despite a return to deficit spending intended to boost the economy, Canada’s annual real GDP growth over the past four years has remained stuck in the range of 1.0 to 2.0 per cent, where it has been mired for most of the past decade. In a recent paper for the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, I summarized how the persistence of mediocre growth for over a decade is a sobering reminder of the failure of extraordinary monetary and fiscal stimulus to lift long-term growth rates.
Better Dwelling - Better Dwelling (2019-10-11)
If compared to the population growth, that impressive GDP really isn’t impressive. In fact, a notable Canadian economist called the GDP a “growth mirage.” Real GDP per capita was $55,480 in Q2 2019, up just 0.2% from the year before. Not exactly the massive growth typical of a booming economy.
Reuters - Matt Scuffham (2019-10-11)
Deutsche Bank says it does not have copies of U.S. President Donald Trump’s tax returns, a U.S. appeals court said on Thursday, closing one possible avenue for the Democratic-led U.S. House of Representatives to obtain the returns.
NY Times - Jeanna Smialek (2019-10-11)
Lael Brainard, a Fed Board governor, said that while she supported some of the adjustments approved on Thursday, the overall package of changes went too far.
CBC - CP (2019-10-09)
Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. says the pace of housing starts in September slowed compared with August.
Bloomberg - Jim Bianco (2019-10-09)
WSJ - Nick Timiraos (2019-10-09)
The Federal Reserve will provide new clues about its thinking on where to set interest rates when it releases the minutes of its Sept. 17-18 meeting on Wednesday at 2 p.m. EDT.
FT - Joe Rennison (2019-10-09)
Ten minutes after Federal Reserve chair Jay Powell insisted that the central bank restarting its Treasury purchases was “in no way” the same as the post-financial crisis policy of quantitative easing, one Wall St analyst sent a note to his clients saying that the new strategy “sure sounds like QE”.
G&M - Michael Babad (2019-10-09)
It’s not particularly sharp, and nothing like the fast pace of the past, but mortgage borrowing is picking up. Given Canada’s history with swollen debts and inflated housing markets, that bears watching.
G&M - Michael Babad (2019-10-08)
“The Liberals would loosen fiscal policy by more than the Conservatives if they won October’s election, but neither party’s plans would seriously transform the economic outlook,” said Stephen Brown, senior Canada economist at Capital Economics.
Bloomberg - Andreas Kluth (2019-10-08)
Better Dwelling - Daniel Wong (2019-10-08)
Outstanding household credit reached a new all-time high, with both major segments showing growth. Most of that growth is coming from mortgage credit, which is currently accelerating.
WSJ - Avantika Chilkoti, Paul J. Davies (2019-10-03)
The euro has drifted toward its lowest levels against the dollar in years as Europe takes the brunt of a global growth slowdown. Investors are now questioning: How low can it go?
Bloomberg - Brian Chappatta (2019-10-02)
Heading into October, it was clear Federal Reserve officials would face a difficult decision at their meeting at the end of the month. Just one day into October, the challenges have already become even more intense.
NY Times - Amie Tsang (2019-09-30)
FT - Martin Arnold (2019-09-26)
Tensions between the European Central Bank and Germany have again exploded into public view after the resignation of Sabine Lautenschläger, who represented the eurozone’s biggest economy on the central bank’s executive board.
G&M - Video (2019-09-25)
Premier Jason Kenney responds to a Federal Court judge issuing an injunction against Alberta's legislation giving it the power to reduce oil shipments to B.C.
G&M - ROD NICKEL AND NIA WILLIAMS (2019-09-23)
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has cast himself as a champion in the fight against climate change while pushing to expand an oil pipeline to help struggling producers, a contradiction that may hurt his re-election bid next month.
FP - Kevin Carmichael (2019-09-23)
The Washington Post published an interesting bit of trivia this week. As of Sept. 18, Donald Trump had tweeted or retweeted nasty things about the Federal Reserve and its chairman, Jerome Powell, an astonishing 43 times since the end of July.
G&M - DAVID PARKINSON (2019-09-20)
The Bank of Canada has appointed long-time insider Toni Gravelle as one of its deputy governors, filling the vacancy created over the summer by the retirement of Lynn Patterson.
CBC - Don Pittis (2019-09-20)
A weakening global economy and continued trade fears — and emphatically, he said, not angry words from U.S. President Donald Trump — convinced U.S. Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell to cut interest rates on Wednesday for the second time this summer.
G&M - DAVID PARKINSON (2019-09-19)
If you’re a suburban homeowner lying awake at night stressing about how you’ll ever get out from under your mountain of mortgage-infused debt, congratulations. You’re the most important voter in next month’s federal election.
CBC - Don Pittis (2019-09-19)
Despite the fact that the quarter point cut was widely expected, the move had an immediate effect on the Canadian dollar which fell promptly after Powell's announcement.
CBC - AP (2019-09-18)
Economists do not see the action as a signal about where the Fed plans to move its key policy rate, known as the federal funds rate, but rather as a technical exercise to keep the rate in the range set by the central bank.
G&M - Ian McGugan (2019-09-18)
Pity Jerome Powell. The chair of the United States Federal Reserve has just been called a bonehead by his boss. Now he faces the unenviable task of explaining the Fed’s latest interest-rate decision to increasingly baffled investors, while dealing with the aftermath of an unexpected squeeze in short-term funding markets.
Bloomberg - Ferdinando Giugliano (2019-09-17)
G&M - MARTIN EICHENBAUM AND CHARLES MOSKOS (2019-09-16)
Canadian monetary policy is the legal responsibility of exactly one person, the Governor of the Bank of Canada. This single decision-maker structure is unique among the central banks of advanced economies. The last review of the bank’s governance structure was conducted by a parliamentary subcommittee in 1992 (known as the Manley Committee). It is time to assess the structure governing monetary policy decisions at the Bank of Canada once again.
CBC - Don Pittis (2019-09-16)
With last week's declaration that the very smart people at the Federal Reserve are "boneheads," U.S. President Donald Trump has become perhaps the world's highest profile prognosticator of a North American crisis.
WSJ - David Harrison and Paul Hannon (2019-09-13)
The European Central Bank’s decision Thursday to lower its key interest rate further below zero while relaunching an asset-purchase program means monetary policy in Europe is now even more stimulative than in the U.S.
WSJ - Jon Sindreu (2019-09-13)
ECB President Mario Draghi’s emphasis on fiscal policy is an admission that further monetary stimulus can do little for the economy.
CBC - Reuters (2019-09-13)
As Draghi's eight-year mandate nears its close, the ECB cut rates deeper into negative territory and promised bond purchases with no end-date to push borrowing costs even lower, hoping to kick-start activity nearly a decade after the bloc's debt crisis.
G&M - Robert Fife (2019-09-11)
Former justice minister and attorney-general Jody Wilson-Raybould met with RCMP investigators this week to discuss political interference in the criminal prosecution of SNC-Lavalin Group Inc., and is calling on the Trudeau government to waive cabinet confidentiality for her and all other witnesses to allow a thorough probe into potential obstruction of justice.
G&M - Howard Schneider (2019-09-11)
“The Federal Reserve should get our interest rates down to ZERO, or less, and we should then start to refinance our debt. INTEREST COST COULD BE BROUGHT WAY DOWN, while at the same time substantially lengthening the term,” Trump tweeted. “We have the great currency, power, and balance sheet... The USA should always be paying the … lowest rate. No Inflation!”
G&M - KONRAD YAKABUSKI (2019-09-11)
Jean Boivin wants to be clear about one thing: Neither he, nor his colleagues at the BlackRock Investment Institute, are predicting a global recession any time soon. Which seems incongruous, considering that he has been telling central bankers they need to get ready now for the next big one.
CBC - Catherine Tunney (2019-09-11)
Canadians "have an important choice to make" about their country's future path, Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau said today as he triggered the official launch of the federal election campaign.
CBC - CP (2019-09-11)
But the most important is the participation to the national debate," Bernier said on Wednesday, the first day of the campaign ahead of the Oct. 21 vote.
G&M - MICHELLE ZILIO, JANICE DICKSON KRISTY KIRKUP MARIEKE WALSH (2019-09-10)
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is expected to visit Governor-General Julie Payette on Wednesday morning to kick off the election campaign, Liberal sources said.
FP - Diane Francis (2019-09-10)
The budget predicts deficits of $19.8 billion in 2019-20; $19.7 billion in 2020-21; and $14.8 billion in 2021-22. Not only have they broken promises to adhere to fiscally responsible spending, but they have no timetable to reduce deficits for the near future should they be re-elected.
Bloomberg - Charlotte Ryan and Matthew Boesler (2019-09-10)
G&M - BRENNA HUGHES NEGHAIWI AND JOHN REVILL (2019-09-09)
The U.S. Federal Reserve will continue to act “as appropriate” to sustain the economic expansion in the world’s biggest economy, Fed Chair Jerome Powell said on Friday in Zurich, sticking to a phrase that financial markets have taken to signal further rate reductions, but declining to be more specific.
Bloomberg - Marcus Ashworth (2019-09-09)
Bloomberg - Mohamed A. El-Erain (2019-09-09)
The European Central Bank and the Federal Reserve will be under even greater scrutiny over the next 10 days as their policy-making committees discuss recent economic developments, update their assessment of prospects and adopt whatever actions and guidance they deem necessary. The outcome will most likely satisfy those looking for the world’s two most influential central banks to further loosen monetary policy.
G&M - FARAI MUTSAKA AND CHRISTOPHER TORCHIA (2019-09-06)
Robert Mugabe, the former leader of Zimbabwe forced to resign in 2017 after a 37-year rule whose early promise was eroded by economic turmoil, disputed elections and human rights violations, has died. He was 95.
G&M - Ann Saphir (2019-09-05)
Trade policy uncertainty driven by the Trump administration’s escalating dispute with China means hundreds of billions of dollars in lost U.S. output and as much as US$850-billion lost globally through early next year, research published this week by the U.S. Federal Reserve suggests.
FP - Kevin Carmichael (2019-09-05)
When the central bank left interest rates unchanged on Wednesday, it emphasized that inflation was right at its rough target of two per cent. And the first speech by one of the institution’s leaders since early July was based on, you guessed it, the Bank of Canada’s latest thinking about inflation.
CBC - CP (2019-09-04)
Governor Stephen Poloz is widely expected to hold the overnight interest rate at 1.75 per cent as the bank delivers its first policy announcement — or public commentary of any kind — since early July.
Reuters - Howard Schneider, Ann Saphir (2019-09-04)
The dueling views - from St. Louis Fed President James Bullard, who called for a half-a-percentage-point rate cut, and Boston Fed President Eric Rosengren, who saw no immediate need for any move - show the tight spot Fed Chair Jerome Powell finds himself in as the Fed’s next policy-setting meeting approaches.
Bloomberg - Natalie Wong and Paula Sambo (2019-09-04)
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau wants to make housing more affordable for first-time buyers. His efforts may be of little help to people in the country’s priciest cities.
WSJ - Natasha Kha, Neil Western (2019-09-04)
In a major concession to protesters, Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam plans to withdraw the China extradition bill that sparked months of at times violent street demonstrations.
WSJ - Michael S. Derby (2019-09-04)
The Federal Reserve’s balance sheet, which has recently stopped shrinking, may once again start growing later this year, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York said Tuesday.
G&M - Nathan Vanderklippe (2019-09-04)
Canada has selected Dominic Barton as its next ambassador to Beijing, moving to end a months-long gap without a top diplomat in the world’s second-largest economy amid a damaging dispute between the two countries.
G&M - DAVID PARKINSON (2019-09-04)
In the face of a burgeoning international trade crisis and rising global recession fears, the Bank of Canada had a golden opportunity to signal that it is preparing to jump onto the rate-cutting bandwagon that most of the world’s major central banks have already boarded over the summer.
G&M - Roger E. A. Farmer (2019-09-04)
Former U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Lawrence Summers and Anna Stansbury recently cast doubt on the future of central banking, suggesting that the prevailing monetary-policy framework is in dire need of a rethink. I agree and have been calling for a reconsideration of “Old Keynesian economics” for more than a decade, starting with an article I published in 2006, two years before the Great Recession made it fashionable to question the way we think about macroeconomic theory. I am heartened that the narrative and body of research I have developed continues to gain public support.
G&M - Bill Curry (2019-09-04)
The Bank of Canada kept its key interest rate unchanged at 1.75 per cent Wednesday, but said the U.S.-China trade conflict is having a more damaging impact on global growth than previously thought.
Bloomberg - Theophilos Argitis (2019-09-04)
The BOC resisted pressure from investors to signal it will follow global easing trends.
Bloomberg - Mohamed A. El-Erian (2019-09-04)
Fearing market disruptions, both the European Central Bank and the Federal Reserve will most likely take more stimulus measures this month regardless of what their analyses tell them about the potential impact on the economy and financial assets. That has implications for both future economic prosperity and medium-term financial stability, and it adds to the to-do list for policy makers and investors.
G&M - Don Pittis (2019-09-03)
Inevitably, Bank of Canada governor Stephen Poloz must do his job in the shadow of his powerful U.S. equivalent at the Federal Reserve.
Canadian Business - Andy Blatchford (2019-08-30)
Canadians last heard the Bank of Canada’s take on the economy in the early days of summer — and the timing of its next update has the potential to tinge political debate during the federal election campaign.
Since the bank’s most recent public comments in early July, there’s mounting evidence of a slowing global economy mostly due to the escalating U.S.-China trade war — including fresh Chinese tariffs Friday and new threats on Twitter from U.S. President Donald Trump that shook up markets.
The Bank of Canada’s latest message underlined the resilience of the domestic economy, and it appeared in no rush to move its policy even as other central banks were poised to lower rates to respond to the already dimming international outlook.
The next policy meeting is scheduled for Sept. 4, while the election campaign is widely expected to start at some point during the first two weeks of September. The central bank will release a statement with its rate decision, and the following day deputy governor Lawrence Schembri will provide more detail about the governing council’s thinking when he gives a speech and holds a news conference in Halifax.
Bloomberg - Carolina Millan and Jorgelina Do Rosario (2019-08-29)
Hemmed in by an uphill re-election bid and a worsening debt and currency crisis, Argentine President Mauricio Macri will try to cajole creditors into giving the country more time to repay them as he struggles to simply finish his term.
WSJ - Nick Timiraos (2019-08-28)
A former Federal Reserve official took the unusual step of calling on the central bank to help prevent President Trump’s re-election by refraining from taking measures to stimulate the U.S. economy.
NY Times - Jeanna Smialek (2019-08-28)
G&M - Mark Mackinnon (2019-08-28)
The Speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow, a nominally non-partisan figure who oversees parliamentary proceedings, was among those disturbed by the Prime Minister’s actions. “However it is dressed up, it is blindingly obvious that the purpose of prorogation now would be to stop Parliament debating Brexit and performing its duty in shaping a course for the country,” Mr. Bercow said in a statement. “At this time, one of the most challenging periods in our nation’s history, it is vital that our elected Parliament has its say.”
WSJ - Nick Timiraos (2019-08-27)
The world’s central bankers are increasingly worried that President Trump’s tactics to reorder global trade are destabilizing economies in ways that they can’t easily fix.
NY Times - Stephanie Saul (2019-08-27)
CBC - AP (2019-08-26)
Billionaire industrialist David H. Koch, who with his older brother Charles transformed American politics by pouring their riches into conservative causes, has died at age 79.
CBC - AP (2019-08-26)
Federal Reserve officials were widely divided at their meeting last month when they decided to cut rates for the first time in a decade, with some arguing for a bigger rate cut while others insisted the Fed should not cut rates at all.
Reuters - Brendan Pierson (2019-08-26)
Lawyers for U.S. President Donald Trump asked a federal appeals court on Friday to block Deutsche Bank AG (DBKGn.DE) and Capital One Financial Corp (COF.N) from handing the financial records of the president’s family and the Trump Organization to Democratic lawmakers.
CBC - AP (2019-08-21)
The minutes of the July 30-31 discussions released Wednesday show two officials believed the Fed should cut its benchmark policy rate by a half-percentage point, double the quarter-point reduction the central bank eventually agreed upon. On the other end, some Fed officials argued for no rate cut at all, believing that the economy was beginning to improve after a soft patch in the spring.
WSJ - Michael S. Derby (2019-08-21)
Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis President Neel Kashkari wants the Fed to make a firmer commitment to getting inflation back up to its 2% target.
WSJ - Gabriele Steinhauser, Thandi Ntobela (2019-08-21)
South Africa’s finance minister stirs controversy, especially in the kitchen.
Bloomberg - Theophilos Argitis (2019-08-21)
Bloomberg - Bloomberg Video (2019-08-21)
Zero interest bond flops.
Bloomberg - Chris Bourke and Michael Heath (2019-08-21)
Australia and New Zealand’s central banks are pondering what until recently seemed unthinkable: deploying the types of extreme monetary policies that were spawned globally by the 2008 global financial crisis. Bond-purchase programs and negative interest rates were for years seen Down Under as the preserve of countries that had gorged on risky derivatives and been reckless with debt. There’s been a sharp change of tune, however. Now, the two central banks are at the forefront of what appears to be a race to the bottom -- where even interest rates at zero may not be far enough.
G&M - STEVE HOLLAND AND LISA LAMBERT (2019-08-20)
U.S. President Donald Trump said on Tuesday his administration was considering potential tax cuts on wages as well as profits from asset sales, and sought to play down market anxieties that the world’s top economy could be heading for a recession.
WSJ - Nick Timiraos (2019-08-19)
FT - Adam Samson and Tommy Stubbington (2019-08-19)
Investors are anticipating a fresh wave of stimulus measures to tackle flagging growth, as the White House said it was considering a new round of tax cuts to boost the economy.
G&M - KONRAD YAKABUSKI (2019-08-16)
From the very start, Mr. Trudeau was poorly served by his own advisers in the PMO and by former Privy Council clerk Michael Wernick. All of them should have known they were playing with fire by seeking to put pressure on Ms. Wilson-Raybould to reconsider her decision not to overturn the Director of Public Prosecutions’ refusal to grant SNC-Lavalin a deferred prosecution agreement that would have spared the Quebec-based engineering giant from facing a trial on fraud and bribery charges.
CBC - Robyn Urback (2019-08-16)
Six months ago, Trudeau told Canadians that a report his office pressured the AG was 'false.' He lied
Finextra - Finextra (2019-08-15)
The impending launch comes after five years of work. The People's Bank set up a research team to investigate a digital currency back in 2014.
G&M - Reuters (2019-08-14)
The Bank of Canada said on Tuesday it plans to buy back up to $500 million worth of bonds from up to nine outstanding issues in a cash management repurchase operation on Aug. 20.
G&M - Jeffrey Frankel (2019-08-14)
The trade war between the United States and China is heating up again, with U.S. President Donald Trump abruptly announcing plans to impose a 10-per-cent tariff on the US$300-billion worth of imports from China that he had so far left untouched. The Chinese authorities then allowed their currency, the renminbi, to fall below the symbolic threshold of seven yuan for every U.S. dollar. The Trump administration promptly responded by naming China a “currency manipulator” – the first time the U.S. had done that to any country in 25 years. Pundits declared a currency war, and investors immediately sent global stock markets lower.
Bloomberg - Michael Heath (2019-08-14)
WSJ - Lalita Clozel (2019-08-14)
Federal Reserve officials are weighing whether to use a tool known as the countercyclical capital buffer, which could reduce the risk of a credit crunch in a downturn.
G&M - S.R. Slobodian (2019-08-14)
Canada’s Ethics Commissioner Mario Dion says Prime Minister Justin Trudeau contravened a section of the Conflict of Interest Act by using his position of authority over then-justice-minister Jody Wilson-Raybould to get her to overrule the director of public prosecution’s decision to not negotiate a deal with SNC-Lavalin that would avoid criminal prosecution.
Reuters - Kevin Yao, Ryan Woo (2019-08-13)
China’s yuan is at an appropriate level currently and two-way fluctuations in the currency will not necessarily cause disorderly capital flows, a senior official at the People’s Bank of China told Reuters on Tuesday.
WSJ - Daniel Kruger (2019-08-12)
Federal agencies, banks and investment firms are pushing Wall Street to install their preferred replacement for the London interbank offered rate, the interest-rate benchmark underpinning trillions of dollars in financial contracts.
G&M - Matt Lundy (2019-08-09)
Expectations are mounting the Bank of Canada will be forced to cut interest rates and join a growing number of central banks that have eased monetary policy as the U.S.-China trade war intensifies and recession signals ripple through financial markets.
Reuters - Leika Kihara (2019-08-09)
The Bank of Japan may seek to prevent unwelcome yen rises by tolerating temporary, market-driven falls in long-term interest rates, former BOJ board member Sayuri Shirai said on Friday.
FT - Henry Foy, Max Seddon (2019-08-09)
As pro-democracy protests hit central Moscow this summer, student vlogger Egor Zhukov promoted peaceful resistance to his 100,000 followers on YouTube. Violent clashes on the city’s streets — which have seen armour-clad, helmeted riot police pin down unarmed protesters on stone pavements as their colleagues beat their knees with batons — showed Russia’s security services doling out “political repression”, he said. “Life is a struggle for power,” Mr Zhukov said in a video uploaded last week. “People with no power are fighting to have any at all. People who have any power are fighting for it to be absolute.”
Bloomberg - Tim Duy (2019-08-08)
The Federal Reserve can try to be coy about the chance of an interest-rate cut at the September meeting, but that train has already left the station. Stuck in a negative feedback loop with President Donald Trump and financial market participants, while simultaneously under pressure amid falling global interest rates, policy makers will find themselves left with few options but to further ease short-term rates.
CBC - Reuters (2019-08-06)
But later on Tuesday, China's central bank buttressed the yuan by fixing it at a slightly stronger rate, which ratcheted down the tensions a little.
FT - Kadhim Shubber (2019-08-06)
A US appeals court has bolstered the power of federal prosecutors to grab records from foreign banks even if the transactions at issue did not pass through US accounts. In a ruling released on Tuesday, three appeals court judges in Washington sided with the Department of Justice against a trio of Chinese banks, including one that had received a subpoena under the Patriot Act.
FT - Mure Dickie (2019-08-06)
The departing Royal Bank of Scotland chief executive has backed Bank of England warnings about the impact of a no-deal Brexit, saying that leaving the EU without an agreement would cause some medium-term “pain and anguish”.
G&M - ANDREW GALBRAITH AND WINNI ZHOU (2019-08-05)
The U.S. government has determined that China is manipulating its currency and will engage with the International Monetary Fund to eliminate unfair competition from Beijing, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement on Monday.
Reuters - Pete Schroeder (2019-08-05)
The U.S. Federal Reserve announced on Monday it planned to develop its own round-the-clock real-time payments and settlement service, with an expected launch in 2023 or 2024.
NY Times - NY Times (2019-08-05)
Not all Fed policymakers agreed to the cuts. Eric Rosengren of the Boston Fed and Esther George of the Kansas City Fed voted against yesterday’s decision, the second and third dissents of Mr. Powell’s tenure. They preferred to leave rates unchanged, saying that the U.S. economy remains strong.
WSJ - William Mauldin, Nick Timiraos and Paul Kiernan (2019-08-05)
The U.S. Treasury labeled China a currency manipulator after the Chinese central bank let the yuan depreciate, capping a day of trade-war escalations that sparked a global fall in financial markets and fears the clash could stall the U.S.’s economic expansion.
FP - Kevin Carmichael (2019-08-02)
Geoff Zochodne talks to FP columnist Kevin Carmichael about the Fed’s first rate hike in a decade and where it goes from here.
Reuters - Ann Saphir, Richard Leong (2019-08-02)
In a series of tweets, Trump said he will slap 10% tariffs on $300 billion of Chinese imports starting Sept. 1, saying he was unsatisfied with the pace of trade negotiations between the two superpowers.
G&M - Matt Lundy (2019-07-31)
The U.S. Federal Reserve cut its key interest rate Wednesday for the first time since the financial crisis of 2008, marking the start of a new phase in monetary policy.
G&M - DAVID PARKINSON (2019-07-31)
By deciding to cut interest rates, the Federal Reserve has positioned itself as a shield, protecting the U.S. economy from its own government’s worst instincts. But it may have also set itself up to be President Donald Trump’s enabler.
CBC - CP (2019-07-31)
The Bank of Canada sent signals earlier this month that the Canadian economy is very much on its own path and, at least in the short term, has no reason to follow any move by the Fed to lower rates.
WSJ - Greg IP (2019-07-30)
When Federal Reserve policy makers gather in Washington this week to weigh cutting interest rates, a big part of their decision will already have been made—in Frankfurt.
WSJ - Nathaniel Taplin (2019-07-30)
Will the People’s Bank of China follow the Federal Reserve and cut interest rates on Wednesday? Actually, it has found a stealthy way to do that already.
WSJ - Megumi Fujikawa (2019-07-30)
Japan’s central bank said it wouldn’t hesitate to ease monetary policy further should the need arise, an attempt to keep pace with other major central banks that are preparing to cut rates.
G&M - Michael Babad (2019-07-29)
The Federal Reserve is widely expected to cut interest rates this week, but a big question is whether markets will be satisfied with what the U.S. central bank does and says.
Reuters - Ann Saphir (2019-07-29)
U.S. central bankers are expected to lower borrowing costs this week for the first time since the depths of the financial crisis more than a decade ago. That’s the easy part.
WSJ - Kate Davidson (2019-07-29)
Borrowing by the federal government is set to top $1 trillion for the second year in a row as higher spending outpaces revenue growth and concern about budget deficits wanes in Washington and on Wall Street.
G&M - DAVID PARKINSON (2019-07-28)
The U.S. Federal Reserve is poised to deliver an interest rate cut this week to safeguard a strong U.S. economy against rising trade-war risks – a move that will heighten questions about whether Canada’s central bank will follow suit to address its own trade worries.
G&M - Jeffrey Frankel (2019-07-28)
The United States Federal Reserve has some reasons to cut interest rates at its July 31 meeting, or subsequently if the U.S. economy weakens. (There is also a case for holding rates steady, if growth remains as strong as it has been over the past year.) But one argument for easing is less persuasive: a perceived imperative to get U.S. inflation up to or above 2 per cent.
WSJ - Nick Timiraos (2019-07-28)
Former Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen said she endorses a quarter-percentage-point cut in the central bank’s benchmark interest rate this week because of worries over global growth and low inflation.
CBC - AP (2019-07-26)
The ECB's rate-setting board left its key interest benchmarks unchanged at a policy meeting Thursday but said it could cut them as its next move. It also said it was telling staff to study ways to restart its bond-buying stimulus program in coming weeks.
WSJ - Tom Fairless (2019-07-26)
The European Central Bank signaled it is preparing to cut short-term interest rates for the first time since early 2016 and possibly restart its giant bond-buying program.
Reuters - Reuters (2019-07-24)
Bank of England chief economist Andy Haldane sought to push back against market bets that the central bank’s next move will be an interest-rate cut, saying he would resist lowering borrowing costs unless there was a sharp downturn.
WSJ - Tom Fairless (2019-07-24)
European Central Bank officials are preparing to step up with fresh stimulus, echoing similar signals by the Federal Reserve and other central banks. The question for investors is, when, and how, will the ECB act?
WSJ - PAUL J. DAVIES (2019-07-24)
The ECB has convinced financial markets that it will act. The question is, among its grab bag of possible moves, will it do more than investors expect?
G&M - PAUL WALDIE (2019-07-23)
The Boris Johnson era gets under way Wednesday as the colourful politician becomes Britain’s prime minister and faces the daunting challenge of pulling the country out of the European Union in just three months.
G&M - Nicolas Van Praet (2019-07-23)
he Quebec government is adding its voice to those pressing SNC-Lavalin Group Inc. to execute a quick turnaround, saying the work needed to set the company back on course is “enormous.”
NY Times - David Mueller (2019-07-23)
WSJ - Brent Kendall (2019-07-23)
The Justice Department is opening a broad antitrust review into whether dominant technology firms are unlawfully stifling competition, adding a new Washington threat for companies such as Facebook Inc., Google, Amazon.com Inc. and Apple Inc.
WSJ - Brian Blackston (2019-07-22)
Central banks around the world are poised to unleash the most synchronized monetary stimulus since the financial crisis one decade ago.
Economist - Economist (2019-07-22)
Central-government officials were quick to respond. A statement on the office’s website said the slogans “insulted the country and its people” and accused the demonstrators of going “well beyond the scope of peaceful protest”. It said they had “seriously challenged the central government’s authority” as well as tested the “bottom line” of what China calls the “one country, two systems” arrangement under which it has ruled Hong Kong since Britain handed the territory back in 1997.
FP - Kevin Carmichael (2019-07-22)
For the next few months or so, some of us here at the Financial Post will be filing dispatches from the trade wars, which arrived in Canada on the last day of May 2018, when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau returned U.S. President Donald Trump’s fire with a volley of retaliatory tariffs on imports worth about $17 billion.
FT - James Politi and Lauren Fedor (2019-07-22)
The White House has struck a two-year deal with Democratic party leaders in Congress to raise America’s $22tn borrowing limit, removing the threat of a US debt default and significantly raising federal spending.
FT - James Politi (2019-07-22)
The Fed’s preferred measure of inflation — the core PCE price index, which excludes food and energy — is running at 1.7 per cent year-on-year compared with the central bank’s target of 2 per cent — and inflation expectations have also weakened.
FP - Martin Eichenbaum (2019-07-19)
In sum, powerful forces are working to keep the supply of savings high and the demand for funds to invest low. The net result has been and will continue to be low nominal and real (inflation-corrected) interest rates.
WSJ - Nina Trentmann (2019-07-19)
The U.K. government named a new chief executive for the Financial Reporting Council, a move that comes as the audit and accounting watchdog prepares for a wide-ranging overhaul amid concerns about its effectiveness.
WSJ - Josh Zumbrun, Bojan Pancevski (2019-07-19)
The career of the next European Central Bank chief shows the institution is getting a diplomat and negotiator, not a technocrat or economist. “She is extremely charming and that is part of her style of politics.”
WSJ - Brian Blackstone (2019-07-19)
Central banks in Asia and South Africa lowered their interest rates, joining a global easing bandwagon that started earlier this year in the Asia-Pacific region and is expected to include the U.S. and Europe within weeks.
Reuters - Reuters Video (2019-07-18)
G7 finance ministers and the U.S. House Financial Services Committee on Wednesday all added to the chorus of concerned voices about Facebook's new cyrptocurrency.
Bloomberg - Shull Ren (2019-07-18)
Yahoo Finance - Leigh Thomas (2019-07-17)
France wants to use its presidency of the two-day meeting in the picturesque chateau town of Chantilly north of Paris to get broad support for ensuring minimum corporate taxation. Facebook's recent announcement of plans to launch a digital coin has met with a chorus from regulators, central bankers and governments insisting it must respect anti-money-laundering rules and ensure the security of transactions and user data.
The Guardian - Paul Karp (2019-07-17)
Australia’s prudential regulator will gain new powers to prevent “inappropriate” directors and senior executives being appointed, the federal government has promised.
FP - Karin Strohecker (2019-07-16)
Debt owed by governments, companies, financial institutions and households across developing economies soared to US$69.1 trillion or 216 per cent of gross domestic product from US$68.9 trillion a year earlier. Debt-to-GDP ratios had risen at the fastest pace in Chile, Korea, Brazil, South Africa, Pakistan and China over the past year, the IIF found.
NY Times - Jack Ewing, Amie Tsang (2019-07-16)
She doesn’t have the typical résumé — no doctorate in economics, no post as a central banker — for running the body that sets monetary policy for one-fifth of the global economy. But investors are betting that Christine Lagarde, the surprise nominee to be the next president of the European Central Bank, will act in much the same way as the bank’s last leader.
WSJ - Dave Michaels, Sam Schechner (2019-07-16)
G&M - James Bradshaw (2019-07-16)
The Bank of Canada will take over as administrator of a key interest-rate benchmark that is undergoing an overhaul as part of global reforms to benchmarks, some of which have been vulnerable to manipulation.
G&M - PETE SCHROEDER AND KATIE PAUL (2019-07-16)
Democratic and Republican lawmakers said on Tuesday that Facebook Inc’s history of what they described as untrustworthiness should stand in the way of it launching a digital currency, labelling the plan “delusional” and “crazy” at a Senate hearing.
G&M - STEVE AMBLER AND JEREMY KRONICK (2019-07-15)
The Bank of Canada held its overnight rate constant at 1.75 per cent this week. Markets had completely priced this in, but nevertheless, there are reasons to be surprised by this decision, and perhaps even consider it a missed opportunity.
G&M - Michael Babad (2019-07-15)
We're heading toward key central bank meetings that promise to move financial markets.
CBC - CBC (2019-07-15)
But as global trade threats linger, Canada's top central bankers warn that many people who should know better, including stock market investors, seem to think cuts to interest rates can solve all problems.
G&M - Niall McGee (2019-07-15)
The World Bank has ordered Pakistan to pay Barrick Gold Corp. and Chile’s Antofagasta PLC US$5.8-billion in damages stemming from a long-running international arbitration dispute over mine rights for a massive copper gold project.
G&M - David Milstead (2019-07-12)
U.S. policies that force governments to buy certain products from American factories are harming Bombardier Inc.’s railcar factories in Canada, the company says.
CBC - AP (2019-07-12)
Deficit to top $1 trillion US by end of fiscal year, Trump administration projects
CBC - AP (2019-07-12)
France has adopted a pioneering tax on internet giants like Google, Amazon and Facebook despite threats from the U.S.
FP - Reuters (2019-07-12)
RBC, a primary dealer of British government bonds, said in a research note to clients that the BoE will soon have to ditch its main message that rates will need to rise at some point — even if Brexit goes smoothly.
G&M - GIUSEPPE VALIANTE (2019-07-11)
Guilbeault in 1993 helped found a major environmental advocacy group in Quebec called Equiterre. The activist also worked for Greenpeace for ten years before returning to Equiterre as its director and spokesman in 2007.
FT - Adam SamsonMamta Badkar and Matthew Rocco,and Siddarth Shrikanth (2019-07-11)
The Nasdaq Composite, which rose 0.8 per cent, set a new closing high while the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which finished up 0.3 per cent, touched a fresh intraday record during the session.
Bloomberg - Matthew Burgess (2019-07-11)
Australia’s prudential regulator has ordered three of the nation’s largest banks to increase their capital holdings after finding weaknesses in risk management akin to those at Commonwealth Bank of Australia.
G&M - Fergal Smith (2019-07-10)
The Bank of Canada on Wednesday looks set to raise its second-quarter economic growth forecast and stand pat on interest rates, taking a different tack from some major peers, which are signaling plans for additional stimulus.
Bloomberg - Laura Curtis (2019-07-10)
NY Times - Jeanna Smialek (2019-07-10)
The Federal Reserve’s meeting this month was never going to be an easy one given that officials remain split over when — or whether — to cut interest rates. The last few weeks could set the Fed up for an even more difficult call.
WSJ - Nathan Allen (2019-07-10)
European equities decline
G&M - Bill Curry (2019-07-10)
The Bank of Canada kept its key interest rate unchanged Wednesday and avoided signalling its plans, even as its U.S. counterpart set the stage for a rate cut as soon as this month.
CBC - AP (2019-07-10)
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said Wednesday that "many" Fed officials believe a weakening global economy and rising trade tensions have strengthened the case for looser interest-rate policies.
Reuters - Howard Schneider (2019-07-10)
A confidence shock driven partly by the U.S. trade war is at the center of an increasingly persuasive argument for Federal Reserve policymakers seriously considering cutting rates for the first time in a decade
Reuters - David Shepardson (2019-07-10)
“The United States is very concerned that the digital services tax which is expected to pass the French Senate tomorrow unfairly targets American companies,” U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said in a statement announcing the investigation.
Bloomberg - Theophilos Aargitis (2019-07-09)
Bloomberg - Katherine Greifield (2019-07-09)
G&M - Andrew Willis (2019-07-08)
In one of the great contrarian investments of our time, billionaires such as Murray Edwards and Li Ka-Shing are pouring money into Alberta’s oil sands.
FP - Kevin Carmichael (2019-07-08)
Canada’s Trade Commissioner Service offered via Twitter this week to help executives struggling with this question: What is a free trade agreement?
NY Times - Jeanna Smialek (2019-07-08)
Federal Reserve officials worry that the uncertainty caused by the trade war between the United States and China could be constraining business spending and may be contributing to a manufacturing slowdown that is dragging on growth.
CBC - Catharine Tunney (2019-07-08)
"The federal government must put measures in place to ensure that this situation never happens again."
FP - William Watson (2019-07-08)
There is a reductionist economic interpretation of Canadian confederation that says it was all about the British colonies of northern North America getting together so they could borrow more effectively in London’s capital market. Though an economist, I’m not an economics reductionist so I don’t entirely buy that story. Many things motivate people besides more-efficient borrowing.
G&M - Michael Babad (2019-07-05)
The “quality” of Canadian jobs is eroding as increases in low- and mid-pay employment far outstrips that of higher-paying positions, CIBC World Markets says.
G&M - Mumal Rathore (2019-07-05)
The Bank of Canada will diverge from the U.S. Federal Reserve’s expected policy easing path and keep interest rates on hold at least through this year, according to economists in a Reuters poll who said however that the risk of a recession has risen.
Finextra - Finextra (2019-07-04)
In a letter to Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg, democrats on the House Financial Services Committee demanded an immediate moratorium on the implementation of Facebook’s proposed cryptocurrency and digital wallet, Libra and Calibra..
G&M - Joseph E. Stiglitz (2019-07-04)
Facebook and some of its corporate allies have decided that what the world really needs is another cryptocurrency – and that launching one is the best way to use the vast talents at their disposal. The fact that Facebook thinks so reveals much about what is wrong with 21st-century American capitalism.
G&M - Michelle Zilio (2019-07-04)
U.S. President Donald Trump pressed his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping on the cases of two Canadians detained by China in apparent retaliation for Canada’s arrest of a Chinese telecom executive on an American arrest warrant, Canadian sources say.
CBC - Geoff Leo (2019-07-04)
In December 2015, the Crown filed a series of charges against Wang and Cui, accusing the married couple of receiving payments from Chinese nationals seeking permanent residency in Canada in exchange for securing them job-offer letters, often for positions that didn't actually exist.
G&M - PAUL WALDIE (2019-07-04)
Bank of England Governor Mark Carney has emerged as a leading candidate to take over as head of the International Monetary Fund, one of the most important positions in the global economy.
G&M - Johnson Lai (2019-07-03)
China’s government strongly backed Hong Kong’s beleaguered administration on Tuesday, saying pro-democracy protesters who occupied and vandalized the city’s legislature committed “serious illegal acts” that endangered the social order.
G&M - Rob Nickel (2019-07-03)
An Indigenous-led group plans to offer to buy a majority stake in the Trans Mountain oil pipeline from the Canadian government this week or next, a deal that could help Prime Minister Justin Trudeau mitigate election-year criticism from environmentalists.
Bloomberg - Robert Tuttle (2019-07-03)
G&M - Matthew McClearn (2019-07-02)
A federal review of Export Development Canada has exposed serious shortcomings at the Crown corporation, noting its disclosure practices fall far short of other financial institutions, and that the agency is not legally obligated to consider the environmental or human-rights impact of the financial support it provides to exporters.
WSJ - James Glynn (2019-07-02)
The Reserve Bank of Australia cut interest rates for the second time in as many months, moving to bolster the resource-rich economy against an increasingly murky global outlook, and drive faster job creation locally.
WSJ - Tim Fairless (2019-07-02)
Mario Draghi is teeing up some of the boldest policy moves of his eight-year term as European Central Bank president only four months before he steps down, potentially binding the hands of his successor for years.
CBC - Peter Zimonjic, Hannah Thibedeau (2019-06-26)
A Canadian government official, who spoke to CBC News on the condition they not be named, confirmed the CFIA notified its Chinese counterparts it had uncovered faked veterinary certificates for some Canadian meat products.
FP - Larysa Harapyn - video (2019-06-26)
Mark Warner of MAAW Law speaks with the Financial Post’s Larysa Harapyn about the upcoming G20 summit in Japan.
WSJ - Spencer Jacob (2019-06-26)
Pundit Stephen Moore didn’t get onto the Federal Reserve Board, but he has joined a “decentralized central bank” that hopes to tame cryptocurrencies like bitcoin.
WSJ - Vibhuti Agarwal (2019-06-26)
The Reserve Bank of India’s deputy governor stepped down on Monday, reigniting a debate on the independence of monetary policy in the world’s biggest democracy.
FP - Geoff Zochodne (2019-06-26)
Judith Robertson was named on Tuesday as the next commissioner of the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada, a job that has been vacant after the term of the organization’s previous leader expired earlier this month.
G&M - KANISHKA SINGH (2019-06-25)
Three large Chinese banks could lose their access to the U.S. financial system after a judge found them in contempt for refusing to comply with subpoenas in a probe into violation of North Korean sanctions, The Washington Post reported on Monday.
CBC - CBC (2019-06-25)
But Matt Stoller, a former financial policy advisor to the U.S. Senate Budget Committee, says this move would take the company out of the business world and into the realm of a sovereign nation.
FP - Victor Ferreirra (2019-06-25)
Each time the price of gold poked its head above a technical level of US$1,350 an ounce, speculators would immediately take profits and slam it back down, he said. The last three times prices hovered above that level in intraday trading, they couldn’t hold it until close.
BNN Video - Ed Devlin-Video (2019-06-25)
BNN Bloomberg asked economists and analysts whether the Bank of Canada can afford to not follow the Fed if it indeed cuts rates. Here’s what they had to say.
NY Times - Powell speech (2019-06-25)
Discusses concerns with global economy and policy decisions.
fsim.ca - Mark Sibthorpe (2019-06-25)
This report is a scorecard I designed in order to rank the performance of the current Minister of Finance, Bill Morneau. I do regular rankings because, otherwise, I cannot measure the performance in a meaningful way. The scoring is based on a variety of metrics as detailed on the ‘score-table’ on page 3.
BNN - BNN Video (2019-06-24)
The Bank of Canada is facing a meaningfully different macroeconomic environment, so I do not believe they will be in lockstep with the Fed.
G&M - Janet McFarland (2019-06-24)
The chief executive of Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. (CMHC) has overseen a transformation of the Crown corporation since 2014, shifting CMHC’s focus from its long-time role as Canada’s largest mortgage insurer to a new role as the front-line administrator of the Liberal government’s National Housing Strategy, a program of loans and grants to fund housing for vulnerable groups.
G&M - Michael Babad (2019-06-24)
“There are too many reasons to be gloomy about the Canadian dollar to forecast a sharp appreciation, and our forecast essentially looks for it to underperform others as the U.S. dollar finally corrects in the face of a slowing economy.”
Mr. Juckes, global fixed income strategist, projected the loonie would be at slightly over 75 US cents by December, just shy of 76 by next March, and almost 77 by June, 2020.
CBC - Don Pittis (2019-06-24)
A law that would force Hong Kong courts to send people charged with crimes under Chinese law to mainland China to face penalties has the two groups worried for different reasons, and this time business is weighing in. And it appears at least some factions within the Chinese political establishment are listening, even as Beijing blames the forces of foreign capitalism for instigating the massive protests.
Bloomberg - Alistair Marsh (2019-06-24)
CBC - CBC (2019-06-20)
The U.S. central bank has decided to keep its benchmark interest rate right where it is, in a range between 2.25 and 2.5 per cent.
WSJ - Greg IP (2019-06-20)
Like it or not, the Fed is the world’s central bank. Thus, it is now signaling it will likely cut rates in coming months, not because the U.S. is headed into recession, but because shadows are growing over the rest of the world.
G&M - Adrian Morrow (2019-06-20)
U.S. President Donald Trump is vowing to press Chinese President Xi Jinping on Canada’s behalf over Beijing’s detention of two Canadians in apparent retaliation for Ottawa’s arrest of a Chinese telecom executive.
G&M - HALLIE GU AND DOMINIQUE PATTON (2019-06-19)
China will block pork imports from a third Canadian firm after a shipment was found to contain the banned feed additive ractopamine, the customs agency said on Tuesday, deepening a trade and diplomatic dispute with Canada.
WSJ - Mike Bird (2019-06-19)
In the rally currently roaring through the global bond market, Japan is being left behind, exposing the key flaws in its unique monetary policy platform.
G&M - Geoffrey York (2019-06-18)
In Djibouti, two superpowers have built heavily guarded bases only a few kilometres apart, watching the crossroads between Asia, Africa and the Middle East in an increasingly tense standoff for global supremacy. What could possibly go wrong?
G&M - Barrie McKenna (2019-06-17)
Depending on who’s talking, Canada’s farm export sector is either on the cusp of greatness or headed for disaster.
G&M - David Luggren (2019-06-17)
Ottawa looks set to approve a hotly debated plan to expand an oil pipeline this week, people familiar with the process told Reuters, but the move is unlikely to help Prime Minister Justin Trudeau rebuild flagging support ahead of an October election.
BBC - BBC (2019-06-17)
The scenes are reminiscent of 2003 - when half a million people protested against proposed national security legislation. The unpopular chief executive at the time, Tung Chee-hwa, resigned months later. Critics have said the legislation would expose people in Hong Kong to China's deeply flawed justice system and lead to further erosion of the city's judicial independence.
WSJ - Nick Timiraos (2019-06-17)
Sometimes the Fed cuts rates as a form of insurance, because the risk of bad things happening has gone up: For parallels to questions the Fed faces, analysts point to two rate cuts from the 1990s.
WSJ - Akane Otani (2019-06-17)
Markets are sending conflicting signals about how big a threat the global trade rift presents, underscoring the difficulty investors face in sizing up the fallout from the U.S. and China’s spat.
NY Times - Neil Irwin (2019-06-17)
They want it known they’re basing their decisions on sound economics rather than political considerations. They wish not to be pushed around by what traders in financial markets and cable news pundits want. Or even by the president of the United States.
WSJ - Lawrence Norman (2019-06-17)
Iran said it would exceed limits on its enriched-uranium stockpiles before the end of this month, as the U.S. said it would send an additional 1,000 troops to the Mideast in response to “hostile behavior” by Tehran.
WSJ - WSJ (2019-06-17)
Chinese regulators made fresh attempts to calm frayed nerves in the country’s financial sector, as bank liquidity remained tight by some measures three weeks after authorities took over a struggling city lender.
FP - Philip Cross (2019-06-13)
It is no surprise that of all the former governors of the Bank of Canada, only John Crow had the gravitas and legacy to write a book about his tenure. By comparison, the current governor, Stephen Poloz, whose seven-year term has just entered its final year, barely has accomplishments, never mind a legacy. That is, unless one counts a track record of subpar growth, two near-recessions, monumental bubbles in Canada’s two largest housing markets and a substantial devaluation of the currency. But he did put the face of a female civil-rights activist on the $10 bill.
G&M - Nathan Vanderklippe (2019-06-12)
Protesters crowded onto the streets of downtown Hong Kong Wednesday morning, installing barriers on roads and snarling traffic as they prepared for a day of action to protest a bill that would make it easier for authorities in China to extradite people from the city.
G&M - MATTHEW MCCLEARN, GEOFFREY YORK (2019-06-11)
In Latin America, billions of dollars in Canadian government-backed loans have been funnelled to two of the region’s most notorious oil companies: the state-owned petroleum corporations of Mexico and Brazil, each riddled with frequent reports of bribery, bid-rigging and inflated contracts.
WSJ - Brian Blackston (2019-06-11)
As the global economy slows, central bank policies won’t follow the same path as a decade ago.
WSJ - Vivian Salama (2019-06-11)
President Trump said that the Federal Reserve has given China a competitive advantage over the U.S. with its monetary policy, adding that it is clear some officials haven’t listened to his advice to cut interest rates.
Reuters - Clare Jim, Kane Wu (2019-06-11)
Hong Kong geared for more protests, including strikes, transport go-slows and even picnics, against a proposed extradition law that would allow people to be sent to China for trial, even as the city’s leader vowed on Tuesday to push ahead with the bill.
NY Times - Ben Dooley (2019-06-10)
Spend big and never mind the deficit. That’s what proponents of modern monetary theory, the unorthodox set of economic ideas that has inspired politicians like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, see as the winning formula for American prosperity.
