Canada

The ball got rolling in Asia as China's official manufacturing PMI eased to 50.1 from 50.4 in January. The details were poor, even if not that surprising after the HSBC measure. New orders fell to 50.1 from 51.6 and new export orders fell…

This Great Graphic, created on Bloomberg, shows the US dollar is threatening to move above a trendline against the Canadian dollar drop off the 2011 and 2012 highs. The proximate cause is the dismal retail sales report., which collapsed…

Serious technical damage on the foreign currencies is being inflicted. The euro is falling through the uptrend drawn off last July (Draghi-induced) lows. It comes in just below $1.3200 today. The next technical target is near…

The destructive quality of irredeemable credit, understood by some before the U.S. mortgage crash, obvious to more in its wake, was crystallized in the too-low, centrally controlled, interest rates that flushed a bacillus of fake money and…

Last year, I started off the newsletter with a list of ten surprises for 2012 which I reviewed last month. I apologize for not having a similar list of ten surprises for 2013 yet. I think it is a good exercise to go through to hone one's…

Moody's Investor Service released the following note in conjunction with a ratings action it took on Canadian banks today.

In the past year, I have increasingly turned away from the US housing market to stress the difficulties now besetting other global housing markets because there have been large house price appreciations (and some declines) elsewhere in…

As a Canadian, perhaps I should feel a surge of patriotic pride now that Mark Carney has been designated the new head of the Bank of England – quite a step up for the current governor of the Bank of Canada.  There is no question that Mr.…

Moody's released the following announcement on Friday in connection with a review it is now conducting regarding the Canadian banking sector. Moody's Investors Service has placed the long-term ratings of six Canadian banks (including the…

By Marc Chandler The US jobs report was decidedly mixed. There was good and bad news but the bottom line is that the data is still too weak for the Fed to even consider ending its unconventional policy. The economy created a net 114k jobs…