Shovelling and Shopping - Monday Morning Interest Rate Update (December 16, 2013)

The BoC Jaw Bones the Loonie Down - Monday Morning Interest Rate Update (December 9, 2013)

Fixed Versus Variable Rate Simulation: The Winner Is … Monday Morning Interest Rate Update (December 2, 2013)

Most of us understand intuitively that you can’t solve a debt crisis by creating more debt any more than you can cure alcoholism by drinking more alcohol. That’s why the U.S. Fed’s quantitative easing (QE) programs make so many of us nervous, even as QE continues to push stock prices higher and interest rates lower. The more I learn about this subject, the clearer it becomes that we are living on borrowed time (pun fully intended). That is the fundamental challenge that I now grapple with on a weekly basis when writing about the factors around the world that influence Canadian mortgage rates. Of all of these outside forces, there is no doubt that QE is the proverbial elephant in the room. On the one hand, QE (along […]

Why Quantitative Easing Should Make Canadian Mortgage Borrowers Nervous - Monday Morning Interest Rate Update (November 25, 2013)

Why October’s Strong Employment Data May Not Matter to the Fed - Monday Morning Interest Rate Update (November 11, 2013)

When the U.S. Federal Reserve met last week, it did as markets expected and decided to continue buying $85 billion of newly issued U.S. Treasury debt each month. To put that number in perspective, the Fed is now buying almost all of the new debt issued by the U.S. Treasury. This means that the U.S. federal government is financing its massive deficits in a closed system that is not subject to market forces. In simple terms, today, when the U.S. government needs more money, it simply sends the bill to the U.S. Treasury department, which then calls the Fed and asks it to fire up the printing presses for the required amount. (Preliminary calls like this are a good idea because it’s hard to keep enough ink on […]

The Bank of Canada Finally Drops Its Rate-Tightening Bias - Monday Morning Interest Rate Update (October 28, 2013)