An otherwise gloomy Report on Business article on the Canadian economy searches hard, and finds a silver lining: The bright spot is that companies are diversifying away from the U.S. Three-quarters of Canadian exports go to the U.S., down from 81 per cent five years ago. Bright indeed. Diversification has its proponents. Where is Canadacontinue reading
Business Archives
Hear that hissing sound?
That’s the “loud signal of how the Canadian dollar is affecting exports,”: “For the third quarter as a whole, international trade is going to subtract meaningfully from the gross domestic product, likely to the tune of a couple percentage points,” said Jacqui Douglas, economics strategist for TD Securities. Hang on a sec… a couple ofcontinue reading
Boil, boil, toil and well, who knows
The unfortunate language of market madness combines “bubble” and “peak”. If a bubble is about to burst, though, wouldn’t it be “reaching its widest circumference,” or something along those lines? (No geometry critiques, please — it’s the reason I hated high school math.) So with the C$, which definitely deserves the petrodollar nomiker again, atcontinue reading
Everything’s (sort of) fine (for now)
RBC Royal Bank is feeling so confident about the Canadian economy that it thought it would hold a press conference to share its sunny outlook yesterday. According to Jim Westlake: “If the U.S. economy settles down and they get the types of growth that are forecasted right now, and you don’t see any more secondary effect,continue reading
Tiny bubbles
– Am I the only person who is baffled by the parity protests? What is it that makes Joe 2-4 think that Canadian prices should be identical to those in another country, with a different size, different transportation costs, and different labour laws? And why is Flaherty grandstanding on this issue, pressuring retailers, who havecontinue reading
Fight the Power
Would-be car buyers launch a class action suit claiming sticker prices on Canadian cars are illegal. One analyst points out that when the C$ was at US$0.65 — not so very long ago — prices here were actually lower and no one was complaining. What the plaintiffs ignore is that Canada is a different countrycontinue reading
Dollar daze part 2: don’t blame the bookseller
More from the frontlines of C$ surge, aka the US$ collapse: – I have to question the Star’s dollar headline on its front page today (check your local Star copy or box as it does not appear online). The story is fine, but it’s topped by the ubiquitous pic of a loonie and, in somethingcontinue reading
MEC
While I’m still on my Hamilton kick (‘It’s 905!’/’But so authentic!’), I’m embarrassed to say that I missed this entirely: MEC’s planned Burlington store, which I’m sure there’s a good business case for, is supposed to be a model of environmental design … “Sustainability is a driving force at MEC, and the Burlington store willcontinue reading
Dollar daze*
Woo-hoo! Parity at last! Where were you in 1976? Etc. Except: we live in Ontario consumer prices aren’t budging plus, don’t know if you’d noticed, but housing and food prices, which represent a sizeable part of the average household budget, are rising. Core inflation is actually a bit softer — you know, the type that doesn’t includecontinue reading
Good news for newspaper readers
…and another failure in the long list of failed online newspaper ventures. From business headlines on CBS Marketwatch: 7:24[NYT] New York Times: Free access to Web content to start Wed. 7:23[NYT] New York Times to open up free access to online content 7:22[NYT] New York Times ends TimesSelect online service Prepare for more liberal sprinklingscontinue reading