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3 weeks ago | 
movesmartly.com | David Larock
Move Smartly mortgage expert David Larock explains what Canadian mortgage holders need to know each week.
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2 months ago | 
movesmartly.com | David Larock
Move Smartly mortgage expert David Larock explains what Canadian mortgage holders need to know each week.
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2 months ago | 
movesmartly.com | David Larock
Last week, Statistics Canada released our latest inflation data, for December, and the results came in basically as expected. Our Consumer Price Index (CPI) decreased from 1.9% in November to 1.8% in December year-over-year (YoY). The Bank of Canada’s (BoC) most closely watched measures of core inflation, CPI-trim and CPI-median, also decreased slightly to 2.5% and 2.4% YoY respectively. The continued declines in our key inflation gauges came with some caveats.
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Jan 20, 2025 | 
movesmartly.com | David Larock
Last week contained noteworthy developments for anyone keeping an eye on mortgage rates. On Wednesday, we received the latest US Consumer Price Index (CPI) data for December. It showed that overall US inflation increased for the fourth consecutive month. But bond-market investors were obviously happy with the report because they pushed US Treasury yields lower in response.
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Jan 13, 2025 | 
movesmartly.com | David Larock
Last Friday we received the latest US and Canadian employment reports, for December, and both headline prints came in higher than expected. Bond yields on both sides of the 49th parallel spiked in response, adding upward pressure to Government of Canada bond yields, which our fixed mortgage rates are priced on. A closer look at the data confirms that the strong response from bond-market investors was more appropriate for the US results than for the Canadian results.
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Jan 6, 2025 | 
movesmartly.com | David Larock
Move Smartly mortgage expert David Larock explains what Canadian mortgage holders need to know each week.
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Dec 9, 2024 | 
movesmartly.com | David Larock
Last Friday brought some surprising holiday cheer for anyone keeping an eye on Canadian mortgage rates. We learned that overall job growth in both Canada and the US came in above their consensus forecasts in November. Normally, bond-market investors would respond to upside surprises by bidding up yields, based on the belief that increased hiring would fuel rising labour costs and stoke inflation pressure. But that didn’t happen this time.
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Dec 2, 2024 | 
movesmartly.com | David Larock
Last Friday Statistics Canada confirmed that our GDP increased by only 1% quarter-over-quarter (QoQ) in Q3, down from 2.2% in Q2. That unspectacular result was in line with the consensus estimate. But it fell well short of the Bank of Canada’s (BoC) forecast of 1.5% growth in its October Monetary Policy Report (MPR), which it had already reduced from 2.8% in its July MPR.
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Nov 25, 2024 | 
movesmartly.com | David Larock
Last week Statistics Canada confirmed that our Consumer Price Index (CPI) increased to 2.0% in October, above the consensus forecast of 1.9%. The Bank of Canada’s (BoC)most closely watched measures of core inflation, CPI-median and CPI-trim, also increased from an average of 2.4% in September to 2.6% in October. Bond-market investors responded to the higher-than-expected inflation data by reducing the odds of a 0.50% rate cut by the BoC at its next policy-rate meeting on Dec 11.
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Nov 18, 2024 | 
movesmartly.com | David Larock
Will fixed mortgage rates keep falling? The consensus thinks they will. I’m not convinced. To explain why, let’s start with a quick recap. The Bank of Canada (BoC) ratcheted up its policy rate when the pandemic ended because inflation was red hot. But now that inflation has returned to normal levels, tight monetary policy is no longer needed. The BoC has cut its policy rate from 5.0% to 3.75% thus far, but even at that lower level, it is still restricting demand.
