PrefBlog

Beware! Galloping inflation!

Consumer prices rose 1.2 per cent in December on an annual basis, a faster pace than November’s 0.9 per cent, Statistics Canada said Friday.

The rise in the pace of inflation was primarily driven by higher prices for gasoline, which surged 4.7 per cent. When you strip out the impact of that, consumer prices rose 1.1 per cent annually, though also faster than November’s 1 per cent, the federal agency said.

So-called core prices, which exclude volatile items and help guide the Bank of Canada, increased by 1.3 per cent, again at a greater pace than the 1.1 per cent in November.
…
“Over all, the inflation picture remains very mild in Canada as evidenced by the three-month annualized core rate of just 0.7 per cent,” said senior economist Krishen Rangasamy of National Bank Financial.

“For 2013 as a whole, the annual inflation rate was 0.9 per cent, the lowest since the 2009 recession, and the second lowest since 1994,” he added.

BAM sold some twelve-year notes:

Brookfield Asset Management Inc. (NYSE: BAM) (TSX: BAM.A) (Euronext: BAMA) announced today that it has agreed to issue C$500 million aggregate principal amount of medium term notes (“notes”) with a January 2026 maturity and a yield of 4.825%.

The notes have been assigned a credit rating of Baa2 (stable) by Moody’s, A- (stable) by Standard & Poor’s, BBB (stable) by Fitch and A (low) (negative) by DBRS.

The company intends to use the net proceeds of the issue for general corporate purposes.

The notes are being offered through a syndicate of agents led by CIBC World Markets Inc., Credit Suisse Securities (Canada), Inc., HSBC Securities (Canada) Inc. and RBC Dominion Securities Inc.

It was a mixed day for the Canadian preferred share market, with PerpetualDiscounts up 30bp, FixedResets off 16bp and DeemedRetractibles gaining 8bp. The Performance Highlights table is comprised of losing FixedResets and winning PerpetualDiscounts. Volume was average.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 24th, 2014 at 9:57 pm and is filed under Market Action. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.