The National Bank of Canada

The Dow Jones Industrial Average reached a new high yesterday, while the S&P500 is nine points away from its October 2007 all-time peak. The situation is different in Toronto, where the S&PTSX...

According to the Labour Force Survey, employment in Canada soared to 50.7K in February, miles above the 8K expected by consensus. The unemployment rate stayed put at 7%, however, as participation rate...

Last week was very newsworthy, given all the economic data released and the market events. On Wednesday, Mark Carney, the outgoing Governor of the Bank of Canada, softened his tone slightly, saying...

Ensuring that Canada maintains a competitive corporate tax system has been a salient feature of provincial and federal budgets in recent years. As today’s Hot Chart shows, the most recent...

The excellent job figures released on Friday supported North American stock markets, which have been bullish since the beginning of the year. The unemployment rate now stands at 7.7%. The Fed recently...

FACTS: Canada’s merchandise trade deficit narrowed to C$0.24 bn in January, from a revised C$0.33 bn deficit. The improvement was due to exports (+2.1%) rising faster than imports (+1.9%). The...

Just-released data from the Federal Reserve showed yet another robust 7% annualized monthly increase in consumer credit in January. The rise was again concentrated in non-revolving credit which surged...

The US labour market is revving up as evidenced by February’s strong non farm payrolls. The 246K increase in private sector jobs was the second best performance in the last twelve months....

FACTS: Canadian employment soared 50.7K in February according to the Labour Force Survey (top chart). That was miles above consensus expectations which were at +8K. The unemployment rate, however, was...

FACTS: On an annual basis,180.7K dwellings started in February, regaining some of the ground lost in January (top chart). Urban starts jumped 18.4% to 161.6K. Single urban starts increased 6.1% to...

The US dollar has just had its best month since May 2012. While last May's concerns about the European sovereign debt crisis lifted the greenback, this time it was politics that prompted flows towards...

More overnight news from Australia: the Q4 GDP was released slightly higher than expected at +3.1%. In his press conference, Australian treasurer Swan was upbeat on the economy. However, he noted that...

Global equity markets have been buoyed by pro-growth announcements in the past 24 hours. In China, the outgoing premier called for a GDP growth target of 7.5% in 2013. In order to meet the objective,...

Canada WatchGlobal equity markets have been buoyed by pro-growth announcements in the past 24 hours. In China, the outgoing premier called for a GDP growth target of 7.5% in 2013. In order to meet the...

The Bank of Canada left the overnight rate unchanged at 1.00% as expected. But the tone of the statement was quite dovish as the BoC acknowledged "material excess capacity in the economy". The Bank...

In 2012 Q4, Canada’s GDP expanded a mere 0.6% annualized, after growing an upwardly revised 0.7% the prior quarter. For all of 2012, GDP growth was just 1.8%, its worst showing since the 2009...