Category: Market Action

The TXPR price index set a new 52-week high today of 698.02, a step beyond the old mark of 697.68 set 2026-01-09.

Jerome Powell has released an extraordinary statement regarding Trump’s latest intimidation attempt:

Good evening.

On Friday, the Department of Justice served the Federal Reserve with grand jury subpoenas, threatening a criminal indictment related to my testimony before the Senate Banking Committee last June. That testimony concerned in part a multi-year project to renovate historic Federal Reserve office buildings.

I have deep respect for the rule of law and for accountability in our democracy. No one—certainly not the chair of the Federal Reserve—is above the law. But this unprecedented action should be seen in the broader context of the administration’s threats and ongoing pressure.

This new threat is not about my testimony last June or about the renovation of the Federal Reserve buildings. It is not about Congress’s oversight role; the Fed through testimony and other public disclosures made every effort to keep Congress informed about the renovation project. Those are pretexts. The threat of criminal charges is a consequence of the Federal Reserve setting interest rates based on our best assessment of what will serve the public, rather than following the preferences of the President.

This is about whether the Fed will be able to continue to set interest rates based on evidence and economic conditions—or whether instead monetary policy will be directed by political pressure or intimidation.

I have served at the Federal Reserve under four administrations, Republicans and Democrats alike. In every case, I have carried out my duties without political fear or favor, focused solely on our mandate of price stability and maximum employment. Public service sometimes requires standing firm in the face of threats. I will continue to do the job the Senate confirmed me to do, with integrity and a commitment to serving the American people.

Thank you.

Good for you, Mr. Powell!

Tiff Macklem has indicated his support of Powell:

Macklem, who also spoke in Powell’s defence back in September as pressure mounted from the Trump administration, said in a statement Monday that the Fed chair “reflects the very best in public service” and has his “full support.”

“Chair Powell is doing a very good job under difficult circumstances, guiding the Fed to take monetary policy decisions based on evidence, not politics,” Macklem said in a media statement.
…
Macklem said the independence of central banks is critical to delivering price stability and gives monetary policymakers the space to take difficult decisions that benefit the economy, “free from short-term political interference.”

A bipartisan group of former Fed chairs and top economists on Monday compared the Trump administration’s actions to moves made in more impoverished countries.

The “media statement” does not appear to be on the Bank of Canada website.

The TXPR price index set a new 52-week high of 697.68, edging the old mark of 697.57 set yesterday.

Jobs, jobs, jobs!

Statistics Canada says a boost in the number of people looking for work in December drove the unemployment rate higher at the end of the year.

The agency said the economy added 8,200 jobs last month, topping economists’ expectations.

The unemployment rate rose to 6.8 per cent in December, Statscan said, up from 6.5 per cent in November.
…
Average hourly wages rose 3.4 per cent year-over-year in December, cooling from 3.6 per cent in November.

And in the US:

The American labor market has entered 2026 in respectable shape, continuing to muddle through challenges even as it loses strength.

Employers continued to hire modestly in December and the unemployment rate declined, federal data showed on Friday, but hiring across 2025 was the weakest in five years, driven in part by government staffing cuts and tumultuous public policy.

Employers added 50,000 jobs in the last month of 2025 and the unemployment rate fell to 4.4 percent, the data showed. Average hourly earnings grew at 0.3 percent on a monthly basis in December and 3.8 percent on an annual basis, an acceleration compared with previous months.
…
Excluding health care and social-assistance sectors that added about 700,000 jobs last year, private-sector job growth for the year was just over 20,000, said Samuel Tombs, the chief U.S. economist at Pantheon Macro, a research firm.

And now it’s time for … PrefLetter weekend!

The TXPR price index set a new 52-week high today of 697.57 (which was also the close), eclipsing the old mark of 696.71 set 2025-12-31.

The New York Fed has released the the December Survey of Consumer Expectations:

December Survey: Labor Market Expectations Worsen; Inflation Expectations Tick Up at Short-Term, Unchanged at Medium- and Longer-Term Horizons

• Median inflation expectations increased by 0.2 percentage point (ppt) to 3.4 percent at the one-year-ahead horizon in December. They were unchanged at the three-year- and five-year-ahead horizons, both at 3 percent.
• The mean perceived probability of finding a job if one’s current job were lost fell by 4.2 ppts to 43.1 percent, reaching a new series low. The decline was driven by respondents with annual household incomes below $100,000 and was most pronounced for those above age 60 and those with a high school degree or less.
• The mean perceived probability of losing one’s job in the next twelve months increased by 1.4 ppts to 15.2 percent. The reading is above the series’ 12-month trailing average of 14.3 percent. The mean probability of leaving one’s job voluntarily, or the expected quit rate, in the next twelve months decreased by 0.2 ppt to 17.5 percent.
• Households’ perceptions about their current financial situation compared to a year ago improved, with a smaller share of households reporting a worse financial situation and a larger share reporting a better financial situation. Year-ahead expectations about households’ financial situation improved as well.

They have also commenced publication of the Heise, Pearce, Weber (HPW) Labor Market Tightness Index:

The HPW Index offers an indicator of labor market tightness based on the quits rate and job vacancies per searcher. It can be used for summarizing current wage pressures and forecasting near-term wage inflation.

What are the key features of the approach?
The HPW Index is constructed by taking a weighted average of the quits rate and of vacancies per effective searcher, where effective searchers include both employed and non-employed workers weighted by their job-finding rate. The weights on these two variables—quits rate and vacancies per effective searcher—are equal to their coefficients in a simple ordinary-least-squares (OLS) regression of nominal wage growth on quits and vacancies per effective searcher, where wage growth is measured using the Employment Cost Index (ECI) for wages and salaries of private industry workers. The weights are updated when new ECI wage data are released to incorporate the latest data point.

BK.PR.A is getting bigger:

: Canadian Banc Corp. (the “Company”) is pleased to announce
it will undertake an offering of Preferred Shares (TSX: BK.PR.A) of the Company. The offering will be led by National Bank Financial Inc.

The sales period of this overnight offering will end at 8:30 a.m. EST on January 9, 2026. The offering is expected to close on or about January 16, 2026 and is subject to certain closing conditions including approval by the TSX.

The Preferred Shares will be offered at a price of $10.32 per Preferred Share.

The closing price on the TSX of the Preferred Shares on January 7, 2026 was $10.41.

Since the inception of the Company, 245 consecutive dividends have been declared for the Preferred Shares. The aggregate dividends declared on the Preferred Shares total $11.53 per share. All distributions to date have been made in tax advantaged eligible Canadian dividends.

Effective October 9, 2025, the DBRS rating on the Preferred Shares is Pfd-3 (low)

PerpetualDiscounts now yield 5.55%, equivalent to 7.22% interest at the standard conversion factor of 1.3x. Long corporates yielded 4.91% on 2026-1-7. Therefore the pre-tax interest-equivalent spread (in this context, the “Seniority Spread”) has narrowed to 230bp from the 240bp reported December 31.

I heard maps of South America are going to be revised. They have to show “The Trump-Venezuela Country” now.

The TXPR price index set a new 52-week high today of 696.71, a small jump beyond the old mark of 695.87 set 2025-12-30.

PerpetualDiscounts now yield 5.61%, equivalent to 7.29% interest at the standard conversion factor of 1.3x. Long corporates yielded 4.91% on 2026-1-2, while the of price ZLC changed from 15.17 on 2025-12-31 to 15.09 on 2026-1-2, a decline of 53bp in price. Given a “duration” of 12.31 for the ZLC portfolio (BMO does not specify which duration they report; I am assuming Modified), this implies that portfolio yield rose 4bp from 12/31 to 1/2, implying a yield of 4.87% on 2025-12-31. Therefore the pre-tax interest-equivalent spread (in this context, the “Seniority Spread”) has narrowed slightly (and perhaps spuriously) to 240bp from the 245bp reported December 24.

And that’s it for another year! All the best for 2026!

The TXPR price index set a new 52-week high today of 695.87, ahead of the old mark of 695.07 set 2025-12-29.

The TXPR price index set a new 52-week high today of 695.07 (which was also the close), eclipsing the previous mark of 694.48 set December 24.