Category: Market Action

US inflation wasn’t very encouraging:

Prices climbed 8.6 percent in the year through May, a re-acceleration of inflation that makes it increasingly difficult for consumers to afford everyday purchases and poses a major challenge for the Federal Reserve and White House as they try to secure a strong and stable economy.

The Consumer Price Index climbed 1 percent from April — far more quickly than in the previous month — and by 0.6 percent after stripping out food and fuel prices, which can be volatile. That so-called core inflation reading matched April’s reading.
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The price of gasoline rose 4.1 percent in May over the previous month, bringing the increase from a year ago to 48.7 percent.

And globally, even the ECB is taking action:

The European Central Bank ended a long-running stimulus scheme on Thursday and said it would deliver next month its first interest rate hike since 2011, followed by a potentially larger move in September.

With inflation at a record-high 8.1% and still rising, the ECB now fears that price growth is broadening out and could morph into a hard-to-break wage-price spiral, heralding a new era of stubbornly higher prices.

The central bank for the 19 countries that use the euro said it would end quantitative easing on July 1, then raise interest rates by 25 basis points on July 21. It will then hike again on Sept. 8 and go for a bigger move, unless the inflation outlook improves in the meantime.

“We will make sure that inflation returns to our 2% target over the medium term,” ECB President Christine Lagarde told a news conference. “It is not just a step, it is a journey,” she said of the moves signalled on Thursday.

Meanwhile, supply chain fears originating in China are refreshing themselves:

China’s commercial hub of Shanghai will lock down millions of people for mass COVID-19 testing this weekend – just 10 days after lifting its gruelling two-month lockdown – unsettling residents and raising concerns about the business impact.

Racing to stop a wider outbreak after discovering a handful of community cases, including a cluster traced to a popular beauty salon, authorities have ordered PCR testing for all residents in 14 of Shanghai’s 16 districts over the weekend.

Five of the districts said residents would not be allowed to leave their homes while the testing was carried out. A notice issued by Changning district described the stay-home requirement as “closed management” of the community being sampled.

But at least there are jobs in Canada!

The economy added 40,000 jobs in May, driven by a gain in full-time jobs as the labour market continued to tighten and wages pushed higher, Statistics Canada said Friday.

The increase came as the unemployment rate fell to 5.1 per cent, the lowest rate since at least 1976 which is as far back as comparable data goes. The unemployment rate was 5.2 per cent in April.
…
Statistics Canada said Friday average hourly wages for all employees rose 3.9 per cent on a year-over-year basis in May, compared with an increase of 3.3 per cent in April.

The jobs report follows a decision by the Bank of Canada last week to raise its key interest rate by half a percentage point to 1.5 per cent in an effort to help bring inflation back under control.

The annual pace of inflation rose to 6.8 per cent in April, the fastest year-over-year rise in 31 years.

The upshot is that GOC-5 is now 3.37%.

To top everything else, we have to batten down the hatches in preparation for bathroom wars:

Speaking on Thursday at The Times’s DealBook D.C. policy forum, Mr. Schultz said the coffee giant might no longer allow people who were not customers to use their stores’ bathrooms. The move would reverse a policy Starbucks instituted in 2018 in the wake of the arrest of two Black men in one of its Philadelphia stores. The two men had been reported to the police by a Starbucks employee after they were denied use of the store’s bathroom and asked to leave. They hadn’t made a purchase.

At the time, Starbucks announced that “any customer is welcome to use Starbucks spaces, including our restrooms, cafes and patios, regardless of whether they make a purchase.”

But on Thursday Mr. Schultz said that a growing mental health problem was making it difficult for his company’s employees to manage its stores under the current policies. Mr. Schultz said that the decision was an “issue of just safety” and that he thought Starbucks might have to put policies in place that limit the number of non-customers who come into its stores.

It’s becoming an issue:

Toronto, like many cities in Canada, has a washroom problem. There are not enough of them. According to the Public Toilet Index, Canada has 18 public toilets per 100,000 people, which is better than the United States (eight) but much worse than Iceland (56). Even if you are lucky enough to find a washroom in a park, you’d better make sure you only want to use it between the hours of 9 a.m. and 9 p.m., from May to October. Otherwise, please turn off your body’s taps.

Washrooms may not figure in most people’s reckoning of a great city, but they should. They allow people who might otherwise feel leery about straying too far from their own bathrooms – the elderly, people with young children, those with inflammatory bowel disease – to have full access to their cities. Years ago, when I was living in London and writing about the lack of toilets there, I interviewed urban planning professor and public washroom advocate Clara Greed, who called this unnecessary constraint “the bladder’s leash.” I’ve loved that phrase ever since.
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It was not always this way. In the early 20th century, Toronto built public palaces for its thrones, a fascinating history that is laid out in the Gotta Go TO report for Toronto’s Public Space Committee. But those public washrooms were closed by the early 1980s, because the city, like many others, insisted that bathrooms be installed in gas stations instead of being a municipal responsibility. This led to the private handoff of bathroom keys we’re stuck with today: If you don’t fill one tank, good luck trying to empty the other.

Well, of course public washrooms are a public good and should be publicly funded. Not in the States, though – that’s a radical left-wing idea!

TXPR closed at 647.35, down 0.87% on the day. Volume today was 2.29-million, well above the median of the past 21 trading days.

CPD closed at 12.80, down 1.46% on the day. Volume was 62,090, slightly above the median of the past 21 trading days.

ZPR closed at 10.73 down 1.02% on the day. Volume of 297,580 was second-highest of the past 21 trading days.

Five-year Canada yields were down to 3.19% today.

The Bank of Canada released its Financial System Review – 2022:

Fragile liquidity in fixed-income markets is an ongoing structural vulnerability. A sudden spike in demand for liquidity from asset managers could exceed the willingness of banks to supply such liquidity, causing large price movements and a potential freeze in some markets. The recent tightening in financial conditions and increased market volatility have reduced liquidity.
…
This structural vulnerability has developed in part because the asset management sector—which includes investment funds, pension funds and insurance companies—has grown from $2.3 trillion in assets under management in 2008 to $7.1 trillion in 2021. Over this period, some asset managers have shifted their portfolios to riskier, less-liquid assets. For instance, mutual funds have increased their allocations to corporate bonds from more-liquid government bonds, including those with a lower quality of credit….Market functioning could be severely impaired if these dealers are unwilling to buy these assets if, for example, the riskiness of these assets increases or dealers approach internal risk limits. This happened in March 2020, causing some fixed-income markets to freeze and making it harder for firms to generate cash. (… For a more detailed assessment, see J.-S. Fontaine, C. Garriott, J. Johal, J. Lee, and A. Uthemann, “COVID‑19 Crisis: Lessons Learned for Future Policy Research,” Bank of Canada Staff Discussion Paper No. 2021-2 (February 2021).)

BoC Goveernor Tiff Macklem is talking tough:

Bank of Canada governor Tiff Macklem said the central bank may need to raise its benchmark interest rate to 3 per cent or above to bring inflation under control, and that the bank’s governing council is open to larger rate hikes if needed.

This echoes remarks made by deputy governor Paul Beaudry last week. It opens the door to a 75 basis point interest rate hike at the bank’s next meeting in July.

“We may need to take more interest rate steps to get inflation back to target. Or we may need to move more quickly, we may need to take a larger step,” Mr. Macklem said in a Thursday news conference following the release of the central bank’s annual Financial System Review.

It’s enough to drive a man to drink, and I don’t mean milk:

The cost of milk is rising at its fastest clip in years, propelled by a big annual hike in the benchmark regulated price in Canada’s supply management system.

And now, dairy farmers are asking for an unusual mid-year increase that, if approved, is certain to push retail prices even higher. That may seem like a slam-dunk condemnation of Canada’s tightly regulated dairy market, with its production quotas, government-dictated prices and even a butter-storage surcharge.
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It’s worth noting, however, that U.S. consumers enjoyed relatively low milk prices for more than a half-decade. Regulated Canadian prices were generally trending upward during that time; Canadian consumers did not get the price breaks their U.S. counterparts did.

So, supply management has cost Canadian milk consumers – but those costs arrived long before the current inflationary surge.

TXPR closed at 653.02, down 0.75% on the day. Volume today was 2.67-million, second-highest of the past 21 trading days.

CPD closed at 12.99, down 0.76% on the day. Volume was 94,770, above the median of the past 21 trading days.

ZPR closed at 10.84 down 1.00% on the day. Volume of 392,410 second-highest of the past 21 trading days.

Five-year Canada yields were up to 3.23% today. These bonds are on sale this week!

PerpetualDiscounts now yield 5.70%, equivalent to 7.41% interest at the standard equivalency factor of 1.3x. Long corporates now yield 4.94%, so the pre-tax interest-equivalent spread (in this context, the “Seniority Spread”) has narrowed slightly (and perhaps spuriously) to 245bp from the 250bp reported June 1.

TXPR closed at 657.51, down 0.52% on the day. Volume today was 1.36-million, slightly below the median of the past 21 trading days.

CPD closed at 13.09, down 0.30% on the day. Volume was 56,090, below the median of the past 21 trading days.

ZPR closed at 10.95 down 0.46% on the day. Volume of 147,290 was near the median of the past 21 trading days.

Five-year Canada yields were up to 3.15% today. It’s nice to see a three-handle on the GOC-5 yield after so long!

TXPR closed at 660.93, up 0.99% on the day. Volume today was 1.43-million, near the median of the past 21 trading days.

CPD closed at 13.13, up 0.92% on the day. Volume was 150,770, well above the median of the past 21 trading days.

ZPR closed at 11.00 up 1.66% on the day. Volume of 155,290 was near the median of the past 21 trading days.

Five-year Canada yields were up to 2.999% today. And I’m giving three decimal places today because people will be angry if I round it off!

The US jobs number was pretty good:

The unemployment rate was 3.6 percent for the third straight month, near a half-century low. Average hourly earnings for employees rose by 10 cents, or 0.3 percent on a monthly basis, and were 5.2 percent higher than a year earlier.
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It appears that fewer Americans will be able to fully share in a continued expansion, however. There are growing signals that lower-income families, which have been hit the hardest by price increases and used up much of their pandemic-era savings, are beginning to pull back on discretionary purchases. The cost of groceries is an intensifying headache, and energy prices, which are roughly 30 percent higher than a year ago, are forcing people to make difficult decisions about what goods and services to cut back on to prevent further erosion of their budgets.

Inflation has already made a striking impact: Personal savings as a percentage of personal disposable income fell to 4.4 percent in April, the Commerce Department reported last week. It was the lowest rate since 2008, and far from the anomalous high of 33 percent in April 2020 at the height of federal aid.

TXPR closed at 654.46, up 0.52% on the day. Volume today was 2.05-million, well above the median of the past 21 trading days.

CPD closed at 13.005, up 0.42% on the day. Volume was 108,070, above the median of the past 21 trading days.

ZPR closed at 10.82 unchanged on the day. Volume of 200,710 was well above the median of the past 21 trading days.

Five-year Canada yields were up to 2.93% today.

BoC Deputy Governor Paul Beaudry warned of a much higher policy rate:

Bank officials have previously said they intend to get the benchmark rate to a “neutral” level of between 2 per cent and 3 per cent relatively quickly. In a speech on Thursday, deputy governor Paul Beaudry said there is a growing probability that the bank will need to move to the top end of this range or above.

“Price pressures are broadening and inflation is much higher than we expected and likely to go higher still before easing,” Mr. Beaudry said, according to the prepared English version of a speech delivered to the Chambre de commerce de Gatineau.

“This raises the likelihood that we may need to raise the policy rate to the top end or above the neutral range to bring demand and supply into balance and keep inflation expectations well anchored.”

So brace yourselves!

There were no surprises in the BOC rate decision:

The Bank of Canada today increased its target for the overnight rate to 1½%, with the Bank Rate at 1¾% and the deposit rate at 1½%. The Bank is also continuing its policy of quantitative tightening (QT).

Inflation globally and in Canada continues to rise, largely driven by higher prices for energy and food. In Canada, CPI inflation reached 6.8% for the month of April – well above the Bank’s forecast – and will likely move even higher in the near term before beginning to ease. As pervasive input price pressures feed through into consumer prices, inflation continues to broaden, with core measures of inflation ranging between 3.2% and 5.1%. Almost 70% of CPI categories now show inflation above 3%. The risk of elevated inflation becoming entrenched has risen. The Bank will use its monetary policy tools to return inflation to target and keep inflation expectations well anchored.

The increase in global inflation is occurring as the global economy slows. The Russian invasion of Ukraine, China’s COVID-related lockdowns, and ongoing supply disruptions are all weighing on activity and boosting inflation. The war has increased uncertainty and is putting further upward pressure on prices for energy and agricultural commodities. This is dampening the outlook, particularly in Europe. In the United States, private domestic demand remains robust, despite the economy contracting in the first quarter of 2022. US labour market strength continues, with wage pressures intensifying. Global financial conditions have tightened and markets have been volatile.

Canadian economic activity is strong and the economy is clearly operating in excess demand. National accounts data for the first quarter of 2022 showed GDP growth of 3.1 percent, in line with the Bank’s April Monetary Policy Report (MPR) projection. Job vacancies are elevated, companies are reporting widespread labour shortages, and wage growth has been picking up and broadening across sectors. Housing market activity is moderating from exceptionally high levels. With consumer spending in Canada remaining robust and exports anticipated to strengthen, growth in the second quarter is expected to be solid.

With the economy in excess demand, and inflation persisting well above target and expected to move higher in the near term, the Governing Council continues to judge that interest rates will need to rise further. The policy interest rate remains the Bank’s primary monetary policy instrument, with quantitative tightening acting as a complementary tool. The pace of further increases in the policy rate will be guided by the Bank’s ongoing assessment of the economy and inflation, and the Governing Council is prepared to act more forcefully if needed to meet its commitment to achieve the 2% inflation target.

As usual, there is no listing of who voted for and against, nor a summary of contrary arguments. The governors aren’t good enough at their jobs to risk being seen in an occasional minority.
The Globe notes:

Higher interest rates won’t do much to deal with international sources of inflation, which include persistent supply-chain bottlenecks, COVID-19 lockdowns in China, and surging commodity prices following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

But higher interest rates do dampen demand in the economy. That can impact domestic sources of inflation tied to the service sector, housing market and ultra-tight labour market. In practice, this happens by increasing the cost of borrowing money, which shows up in things such as interest rates on mortgages, business loans and car loans.

I think they just cribbed that from a recent comment by Assiduous Reader baffled.

Rob Carrick puts a little blame on real estate speculators:

Behaviour in the housing market is a concern to the Bank of Canada because it suggests inflation is becoming entrenched in the economy.
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But without the influence of investors buying up homes, these rate increases might have been less of a burden.

Imagine you and your young kids bought a first home five years ago, when a well-discounted five-year fixed rate mortgage could be had for 2.25 per cent. You bought the place to live in, not to flip or rent. You made improvements in your property and the community benefited from your presence.

Flash ahead to 2022 – you must now renew at mortgage rates around 4.2 per cent for the same five-year fixed rate. A substantial increase in mortgage payments is coming, brought to you in part by real estate investors and speculators.

The point of low interest rates is to get free market traders to borrow money to invest in long term assets, which includes houses. One may quibble that it would be better if this investing were performed on productive assets rather than depreciating ones – I’ve done so for years – but the fact is that people like real estate, can touch real-estate, think they understand real-estate and therefore invest in real estate. I’ve known that for years and so has the Bank of Canada.

Don’t blame speculators. I have a feeling that they lose a lot more money than they ever make in the long run and, more importantly, they did exactly what the BoC wanted them to do.

Assiduous Reader TS sends me a copy of an eMail he sent to BCE:

Dear Sir or Madame,

I believe that the dividend on BCE.PR.B and similar prime rate preferred shares for record date May 31, 2022 were calculated incorrectly.

On the website it states that the dividend is $0.06215

The prime rate for the entire month of May was 3.2% so $25 x 3.2% / 12 mths = $0.06667

You still have time to change that as payment date is Jun 13, 2022.

Please correct as soon as possible.

Thank you.

The complaints I get about dividends are usually based on a misunderstanding of the issue terms, but after reading the prospectus:

The holders of the Series AB Preferred Shares will be entitled to receive floating adjustable cumulative preferred cash dividends, as and when declared by the board of directors of BCE Inc., which will be payable on the twelfth day of each Month commencing with the Month immediately following the date of issue of the Series AB Preferred Shares.

The annual floating dividend rate for the first Month will be equal to 80% of Prime. The dividend rate will float in relation to changes in Prime and will be adjusted upwards or downwards on a monthly basis by an adjustment factor (the ‘‘Adjustment Factor’’) whenever the Calculated Trading Price of the Series AB Preferred Shares is $24.875 or less or $25.125 or more respectively. The maximum monthly adjustment for changes in the Calculated Trading Price will be +/-4.00% of Prime. The annual floating dividend rate applicable for a Month will in no event be less than 50% of Prime or be greater than Prime.

The Adjustment Factor for a Month will be based on the Calculated Trading Price of the Series AB Preferred Shares for the preceding Month determined in accordance with the following table:

If the Calculated Trading Price for the Preceding Month is	The Adjustment Factor as a Percentage of Prime shall be
$25.50 or more******************************************	–4.00%
$25.375 and less than $25.50.******************************	–3.00%
$25.25 and less than $25.375.******************************	–2.00%
$25.125 and less than $25.25.******************************	–1.00%
Greater than $24.875 and less than $25.125 ******************	nil
Greater than $24.75 to $24.875. ****************************	1.00%
Greater than $24.625 to $24.75. ****************************	2.00%
Greater than $24.50 to $24.625. ****************************	3.00%
$24.50 or less*******************************************	4.00%

The maximum Adjustment Factor for any Month will be
4.00% of Prime.
If in any Month there is no trade of at least a board lot of the Series AB Preferred Shares on the Exchange, the
Adjustment Factor for the following Month will be nil.
The annual floating dividend rate for a Month will be calculated by BCE Inc. as promptly as practicable, and
notice thereof will be given to each stock exchange on which the Series AB Preferred Shares are listed for trading.

I can’t see anything in there to contradict him. Stay tuned!

PerpetualDiscounts now yield 5.67%, equivalent to 7.37% interest at the standard equivalency factor of 1.3x. Long corporates now yield 4.88%, so the pre-tax interest-equivalent spread (in this context, the “Seniority Spread”) has narrowed to 250bp from the 260bp reported May 25.

TXPR closed at 653.68, up 1.31% on the day. Volume today was 2.82-million, highest of the past 21 trading days.

CPD closed at 12.89, up 0.86% on the day. Volume was 90,270, above the median of the past 21 trading days.

ZPR closed at 10.75 up 0.66% on the day. Volume of 288,710 was well above the median of the past 21 trading days.

Five-year Canada yields were up to 2.76% today.

Canadian GDP disappointed:

Canada’s economic growth slowed in the first quarter of 2022, but an acceleration in demand showed why the Bank of Canada is unlikely to deviate from its course of rapid interest rate hikes.

After adjusting for inflation, gross domestic product grew at an annualized pace of 3.1 per cent, slowing from 6.6 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2021, Statistics Canada said on Tuesday. While that growth was in line with the central bank’s expectations, it fell short of the median estimate from Bay Street analysts, who called for growth of 5.2 per cent.
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Compensation of employees rose 3.8 per cent in the first quarter in nominal terms, following a 2-per-cent rise in the fourth quarter. It was the largest growth in compensation since 1981, excluding the third quarter of 2020, when the country was rebounding from the first wave of COVID-19.

Canadians also hung on to more of their money. The household savings rate rose to 8.1 per cent from 6.9 per cent – and far above the quarterly average of 3.4 per cent during the 2010s.
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This cycle of monetary policy tightening has already led to weaker sales and falling prices in many of Canada’s exuberant housing markets.

However, that shift hadn’t yet materialized in Tuesday’s GDP report. Investment in residential real estate jumped by 18 per cent, on an annualized basis, driven by expenditures on renovations and costs associated with home purchases.

TXPR closed at 645.24, up 1.06% on the day. Volume today was 1.68-million, above the median of the past 21 trading days.

CPD closed at 12.78, up 0.79% on the day. Volume was 28,790, lowest of the past 21 trading days.

ZPR closed at 10.68 up 0.85% on the day. Volume of 88,010 was third-lowest of the past 21 trading days.

Five-year Canada yields were up to 2.70% today.