Rates are breaking out. Canada’s widely watched 5-year bond yield just hit a seven-month high. That’s typically bullish for fixed mortgage rates. Trendsetter RBC wasted no time this morning. It ran a press release announcing it was boosting 3-, 4- and 5-year fixed rates by 10, 20 and 20 bps, respectively. RBC doesn’t usually issue press releases when it’s merely...
Canada just witnessed its worst spike in unemployment since the Great Recession of 2009. An estimated 71,200 jobs were lost in November. And we all know what happens when unemployment bottoms and starts climbing. Rates usually drop. Is This Really the Bottom in Unemployment? No one knows what tomorrow will bring (until tomorrow).But here’s what we know: Economic cycles have...
With just 12 days until Tariff Man’s next round of threatened tariffs kick in against China, and with new import taxes now threatened on Europe and South America, the market pendulum has swung back to pessimism. “If tariffs scheduled for Dec. 15 are implemented, it would be a huge shock to the market consensus,” Manulife Investment Management’s Sue Trinh told...
Canadian government bond yields, which lead fixed mortgage rates, are essentially adrift at sea. They, like so many other global yields, seem to just be biding time until positive (or negative) trade news breaks out of Washington. There’s so much uncertainty out there that it makes even less sense than usual to try and time the market. When President Trump...
Bond yields erupted Friday for the biggest two-day gain since 2011. Canada’s 5-year yield—which is closely watched for its influence on fixed mortgage rates—closed at its highest point since July. This comes after the Trumpinator heralded a potential U.S./China trade truce. The trade war, now a year and a half old, has pounded mortgage rates on the assumption that weaker...
Canadian mortgage rates follow U.S. rates like spring follows winter. So today’s U.S. Federal Reserve rate cut is most relevant indeed. The Fed chopped the floor for its key target rate by 25 bps today to 1.75%—the same as the Bank of Canada. It’s the second cut in 49 days, but only the second cut since 2008. As usual, the...
Some people think we’re in a bond market bubble. If that’s true, and we’re not declaring it is, the last four days are kinda what you get when a bubble pops. Bond investors are in a momentary state of panic. Canada’s bellwether 5-year government yield has catapulted 31 basis points in just four trading days. The last time that happened...
Do you care if some investor in China or France dumps Canadian bonds? Many would answer, no. But when foreign demand for Canadian bonds drops, other things equal, bond prices drop. And given bonds and yields (interest rates) move inversely, and given fixed mortgages are partially funded in the bond market, when overseas demand for Canadian bonds falls, it usually...
Bond yields have found at least a near-term bottom after four-and-a-half months of declines. That means Canadian fixed mortgage rates may also have found a bottom…for now. Here’s a quick look at the lowesteffective 5-year fixed rates, and how far they’ve fallen since the peak last fall: Insured: 2.79% -44 bps Insurable (80% LTV or less): 2.93% -40 bps Uninsured:...
Quick news nuggets from Canada’s mortgage rate market: Not only has the yield curve inverted, but in some cases the mortgage rate curve has inverted. Among uninsured mortgages available in multiple provinces, for example, thebest 5-year fixed rateis now belowthebest variable rate. There’s still tremendous value in insured variable rates—now effectively as low as 2.54% in some provinces. Markets are...
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