The Bank of Canada has announced:
The Bank of Canada is raising its target for the overnight rate to 3/4 per cent. The Bank Rate is correspondingly 1 per cent and the deposit rate is 1/2 per cent. Recent data have bolstered the Bank’s confidence in its outlook for above-potential growth and the absorption of excess capacity in the economy. The Bank acknowledges recent softness in inflation but judges this to be temporary. Recognizing the lag between monetary policy actions and future inflation, Governing Council considers it appropriate to raise its overnight rate target at this time.
…
The Bank estimates real GDP growth will moderate further over the projection horizon, from 2.8 per cent in 2017 to 2.0 per cent in 2018 and 1.6 per cent in 2019. The output gap is now projected to close around the end of 2017, earlier than the Bank anticipated in its April Monetary Policy Report (MPR).CPI inflation has eased in recent months and the Bank’s three measures of core inflation all remain below 2 per cent. The factors behind soft inflation appear to be mostly temporary, including heightened food price competition, electricity rebates in Ontario, and changes in automobile pricing. As the effects of these relative price movements fade and excess capacity is absorbed, the Bank expects inflation to return to close to 2 per cent by the middle of 2018. The Bank will continue to analyze short-term inflation fluctuations to determine the extent to which it remains appropriate to look through them.
Governing Council judges that the current outlook warrants today’s withdrawal of some of the monetary policy stimulus in the economy. Future adjustments to the target for the overnight rate will be guided by incoming data as they inform the Bank’s inflation outlook, keeping in mind continued uncertainty and financial system vulnerabilities.
As usual there are no details of how the voting went or any capsule description of the rationale for such dissent, as is routinely provided by professionally managed central banks such as the US Federal Reserve. It’s a pity that members of the grandiosely named Governing Council are so insecure!
As noted by Tim Shufelt and James Bradshaw in the Globe, the corresponding cut in 2015 resulted in a Prime decrease of only 15bp; this was reported on PrefBlog. Sadly, we do not know what has been done with the banks’ top secret internal primes or the spreads to Prime that the average customer might see on his renewal notice.
Details are:
- TD : Prime up 25bp to 2.95%
- BMO : Prime up 25bp to 2.95%
- CM : Prime up 25bp to 2.95%
- RY : Prime up 25bp to 2.95%
- BNS : Prime up 25bp to 2.95%
- NA : Prime up 25bp to 2.95%