Posts from the ‘Monday Morning Mortgage Rate Updates’ Category

Last week’s banner headline jobs number should have sent the five-year Government of Canada bond yield soaring, but it actually closed slightly lower on Friday. This week's post explains why.

Today's post summarizes five news items from last week that should be of interest to anyone keeping an eye on Canadian mortgage rates.

In today's post I explain how the U.S. economy's current growth surge may be raising the odds of a Bank of Canada rate hike a little farther down the road.

Last Friday we learned that Canadian inflation increased by 2.5% in June. The consensus predicted that higher rates are on the way ... but are they really?

The Bank of Canada raised its overnight rate again last Wednesday despite significant uncertainty about our economy's near-term prospects. Today's post offers my take.

It is widely expected that the Bank of Canada (BoC) will raise its overnight rate by another 0.25% when it meets this week, and if it does, lenders will pass that increase on to variable-rate mortgage borrowers in short order. The Bank signaled its plans when it made its most recent policy announcement on May 30, and it has appeared largely unmoved by the U.S.- initiated trade war that began almost immediately afterward or by the steady string of weaker-than-expected economic data that we have seen since. With the Bank’s next rate hike now a seemingly foregone conclusion after BoC Governor Poloz’s speech last week, the most important question remaining to be answered is whether additional rate hikes are looming on the near horizon. Variable-rate borrowers who are […]

In its most recent policy statement released on May 30, the Bank of Canada (BoC) gave every indication that it would raise its overnight rate, which our variable mortgage rates are priced on, at its next meeting on July 11. But right afterwards, U.S. President Trump started a trade war with Canada (among other countries), and we were hit with a steady string of mostly weaker-than-expected economic data. These events fueled speculation that the BoC might not actually follow through with a rate-hike next week and piqued everybody’s interest in BoC Governor Poloz’s speech to the Greater Victoria Chamber of Commerce, which he delivered last Wednesday. Market watchers expected Governor Poloz to use this forum to confirm whether recent events had changed the Bank’s near-term plans. Governor Poloz […]

When the BoC released its latest policy statement it might as well have hung out a neon sign that said, “We’re hiking rates at our next meeting in July”. Then Murphy’s law kicked in and just about every ensuing economic development from that point forward served to undermine the Bank's intent.