The National Bank of Canada

The British economy bounced back more quickly than expected in Q2 of 2014. Its GDP grew by 0.9%, compared to the forecasted 0.8%. A key rate hike from the Bank of England is therefore more and more...

Canada – Retail sales fell for the first time this year, dropping 0.1% in July after an upwardly revised 1.2% gain in the prior month. In July, there was the expected jump in auto sales (+1.6%),...

The People’s Bank of China (PBoC), after having reached agreements with the central banks of the U.S., England, Australia, New-Zealand and Japan, has just authorized direct trading between the...

Most markets are down this morning, because of concerns stemming from the low level of Chinese growth. Lou Jiwei, the Minister of Finance, stated that he was worried by the low growth experienced in...

There was a lot of volatility yesterday after the Federal Open Market Committee’s key rate decision. During her press conference, Chair Janet Yellen mentioned that inflation remained below...

Lower U.S. Industrial Production figures (August) released yesterday weighed down the greenback, which had been trading at its highest level in 14 months. Caution remains of the essence, with the FOMC...

The greenback is doing great these days. In the past three months, the USD has risen against all other G10 currencies, with increases ranging from 2.08%, 4.56% and 4.87% against the loonie, the euro...

Canada – Housing starts fell 3.7% to 192.4K in August (from 200K in the prior month). There were lower starts in both rural (-3.4%) and urban areas (-3.8%). The decline in urban starts was split...

Yesterday evening, U.S. President Barack Obama announced that he was authorizing a military campaign to degrade and ultimately destroy ISIS. Obama gave the green light for air strikes in Syria and a...

U.S. stock markets nose-dived yesterday afternoon when investment firm BlackRock. stated that the job market was improving and that signs of rising inflation will force the Fed to raise its key rate....

The greenback enjoyed an excellent day yesterday, posting substantial gains against the most commonly traded currencies. It rose 0.86% on the day against the loonie, 1.36% against the pound sterling,...

Jobs figures announced south of the border on Friday disappointed economists on the whole. Although 230,000 new positions were forecast for August, only 142,000 were actually created. Despite this...

Last Wednesday, estimates of economic growth in the U.S. during the first quarter of 2014 were revised downwards for a second time. The first release had assessed quarterly growth at an annual rate of...

Several disappointing economic indicators were released yesterday in the U.S., including GDP data for Q1 2014. Once more, the weather was to blame. Economic growth dropped 2.9% compared to an expected...

Yesterday saw very little movement in the USD/CAD pairing, which remained within a narrow range of 20 basis points. It is nevertheless noteworthy to point out that since the highs reached in March,...

Last week the Bank of Canada published a review of the Canadian financial system. The report says that it remains robust, but identified three areas that need to monitored: imbalances in the housing...