From an economic perspective, the last year has been quite tumultuous. As central banks began raising rates to tame inflation, the loose monetary environment with policy rates held at historic lows evolved to a rapidly tightening one. In October 2021, the overnight rate was 0.25 per cent and the 10-year Canadian bond yield was 1.6 […]
Canadian pension plan investments saw very modest gains in the third quarter of 2022 as both stock and bond markets responded favourably to the pace of interest rate hikes around the globe, according to a new report by Northern Trust Canada. The report, which tracks the performance of Canadian defined benefit plans, found the median […]
Efforts by central banks to reduce inflation could spark a global recession, according to a new report from the World Bank. “If the degree of global monetary policy tightening currently anticipated by markets is not enough to lower inflation to targets, experience from past global recessions suggests that the requisite additional tightening could give rise […]
The European Central Bank is expected to raise interest rates for the first time since 2011. In a statement, the bank said it plans to raise interest rates by 25 points on July 21, from negative 0.5 per cent to negative 0.25 per cent. The decision comes in response to inflationary pressures, which hit 8.1 […]
In a move widely anticipated by the financial sector, the Bank of Canada is increasing its target for the overnight rate to 0.5 per cent. “Persistently elevated inflation is increasing the risk that longer-run inflation expectations could drift upwards,” said the bank in a press release. “The bank will use its monetary policy tools to […]
Consensus is building among Canadian business leaders that inflation will average above three per cent over the next two years, according to a new survey from the Bank of Canada. The survey, which polled business leaders in the final quarter of 2021, found two-thirds (67 per cent) of respondents anticipated that inflation will stay above […]
Investors should expect the unexpected in 2022, according to George Athanassakos, professor of finance and the Ben Graham chair in value investing at Western University’s Ivey School of Business. “2022 is likely to be filled with hidden hazards, both known unknowns and unknown unknowns,” he wrote in an email to the Canadian Investment Review. This […]
However long the social, political and economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic may last, humanity and its economic systems have weathered the storm exceptionally well, said David Frum, a political commentator and senior editor at The Atlantic, during the keynote address at the Canadian Investment Review‘s 2021 Investment Innovation Conference. “We just put the entire world […]
Central bankers in developed economies are downplaying the risk of long-term inflation rises, according to a new paper by the Fraser Institute. “Absent a sharp reversal of central bank programs of quantitative easing, forecasts that inflation will return to the two per cent target rate of central banks by mid-2022 at the latest are likely […]
The average Canadian defined benefit pension plan saw its funding position deteriorate slightly on both a solvency and accounting basis in November, according to a new report by LifeWorks Inc. According to the report, the index covering the estimated average DB plan saw its solvency ratio dip, from 111.5 per cent to 110.8 per cent. […]