15 Apr

Bank of Canada holds rate steady – Puts economy on life support

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Posted by: Aneta Zimnicki

Bank of Canada had their scheduled meeting today, and decided to hold the rate steady. It stated it considers its current rate the ‘effective lower bound’. Also announced new measures to provide additional support.

“The Bank’s Governing Council stands ready to adjust the scale or duration of its programs if necessary. All the Bank’s actions are aimed at helping to bridge the current period of containment and create the conditions for a sustainable recovery and achievement of the inflation target over time.”

Your variable rate mortgage remains unchanged, but should be benefiting from the previous several drops already done via the unscheduled emergency meetings.

Next scheduled announcement is June 3.

 

Here are insights from Dominion Lending Centres Chief Economist Dr. Sherry Cooper. My summary below. Dr. Cooper ends on the note that she feels Canada may fare better than other countries.

>The Bank of Canada, along with all other central banks, have taken measures to support the functioning of core financial markets and provide liquidity to financial institutions.

>It did not cut this policy rate again today, as promised, believing that negative interest rates are not the appropriate policy response.

>The Bank will support all Canadian financial markets, with the exception of the stock market.

>This is exactly what the central bank needs to do to instill confidence that Canadian financial markets will remain viable. These measures are a warranted offset to panic selling. Too many investors are prone to panic in times like these, which has a snowball effect that must be avoided. As long as people are confident that the Bank of Canada is a backstop, panic can be mitigated. The Bank of Canada deserves high marks for responding effectively to this crisis and remaining on guard. Governor Poloz and the Governing Council saw it early for what it is, a Black Swan of enormous proportions.

>As a result, Canada will not only weather the pandemic storm better than many other countries, but we will come out of this economic and financial tsunami in better condition.

Full article at this link