Notes from the Desk:  The Bank of Canada Rate Announcement- Surprised But Not Surprised   Today’s announcement. The Bank of Canada (BoC) raised the overnight rate by 25 bps to 4.75% this morning.  The move was not a total surprise, as bond traders had the odds of a hike at around 40%. After the announcement […]

Notes from the Desk – US Jobs Data – Will the Fed Pause the Pause? Today’s US employment data offered a little bit for everyone.  Payrolls crushed expectations, but unemployment ticked higher and wage growth decelerated.   By the Numbers.   339k jobs created, crushing the consensus 195k estimate. Prior two months of data revised […]

Notes from the Desk – CAD CPI – It’s Still Hot in Here   The Canadian inflation data for April surprised to the upside this morning.   YoY CPI 4.4% vs 4.1% expected. YoY core-CPI measures came in at 4.2% meeting forecasts.   The increase in headline CPI was led by gasoline and food prices.  […]

Notes From the Desk: US & Canadian Employment – Not Cinco-ing (de Mayo) with Expectations   Both the US and Canadian employment wage growth data were stronger than expected, as the inflation dragon is proving much harder to slay.   The Canadian numbers.   41k jobs added versus the expected 20k.  Although, the mix was […]

Notes from the Desk – The Powell Pause (kinda)   As expected, the Federal Reserve (Fed) delivered a 25bps hike, establishing the range of the Fed funds rate at 5-5.25% The accompanying statement dropped language referring to ‘some additional policy firming is needed,’ and replaced it with more flexible language about considering economic and financial […]