Canada – Page 29

Bank of Canada – Wait and see

As widely anticipated, the Bank of Canada has held the short term interest rate to be steady at 1%. The official statement has the following salient paragraphs:

The global economic recovery is proceeding largely as expected, although risks have increased. As anticipated, private domestic demand in the United States is picking up slowly, while growth in emerging-market economies has begun to ease to a more sustainable, but still robust, pace. In Europe, recent data have been consistent with a modest recovery. At the same time, there is an increased risk that sovereign debt concerns in several countries could trigger renewed strains in global financial markets.

The recovery in Canada is proceeding at a moderate pace, although economic activity in the second half of 2010 appears slightly weaker than the Bank projected in its October Monetary Policy Report. In the third quarter, household spending was stronger than the Bank had anticipated and growth in business investment was robust. However, net exports were weaker than projected and continued to exert a significant drag on growth. This underlines a previously-identified risk that a combination of disappointing productivity performance and persistent strength in the Canadian dollar could dampen the expected recovery of net exports.

The translation to this is simply: “We’re waiting and watching”. The other note is that the elevated value of the Canadian currency, while great for all of us consumers that purchase imported goods, is damaging the economic prospects of exporting companies.

Bank of Canada – Interest Rates

One event coming this week is the December 7 scheduled announcement of the Bank of Canada overnight target rate. It is currently 1% and it is widely expected that it will remain at 1% given the impact of economic news (i.e. growth is moderating from the economic crisis, and that the high Canadian dollar is impairing growth).

Some are even criticizing the decision to raise rates from 0.25% to 1%, but it is important to note that a short term bank rate of 0.25% introduces more risk to the financial system than a slightly higher rate – although banks are trying their hardest to find credit-worthy entities to loan money to (since money is still very cheap at 1%), there is less of an impulse to doing so than at a 0.25% rate.

You will still get the usual yield-chasing as people continually try to earn a return on their capital. The consideration to ensure the return of capital continues to be secondary.

Reports of food price inflation

I am starting to read more about food price inflation – this makes logical sense when you consider that base commodities such as grain have been rising significantly.

One of Canada’s major grocery retailers, Loblaw Companies (operating Superstore), reported their third quarter results and notably stated the following:

– the Company’s internal retail food price index was flat. This compared to internal retail food price inflation in the third quarter of 2009;

My anecdotal evidence would suggest that food prices are increasing, but at least not according to Loblaw, which has less of an incentive to lie about this than the government statistics.

Short term Bank of Canada rate snapshot

BAX futures suggest that the overnight target rate will be held at 1% for the December 7, 2010 Bank of Canada meeting:

Month / Strike	Bid Price	Ask Price	Settl. Price	Net Change	Vol.
+ 10 NO	0.000	0.000	98.690	0.000	0
+ 10 DE	98.710	98.715	98.710	0.000	4741
+ 11 JA	0.000	0.000	98.675	0.000	0
+ 11 MR	98.600	98.610	98.600	0.000	12558
+ 11 JN	98.460	98.470	98.460	0.000	15591
+ 11 SE	98.280	98.300	98.290	0.000	13157
+ 11 DE	98.140	98.150	98.140	0.010	7394
+ 12 MR	98.020	98.040	98.030	0.000	3483
+ 12 JN	97.930	97.970	97.950	0.010	274
+ 12 SE	97.850	97.930	97.910	0.010	108
+ 12 DE	97.780	97.830	97.830	0.010	7

The rates do suggest that by mid-year we might see another 0.5% increase in rates throughout 2011, but this is financially speculative noise peeking through the woodwork. 3-month corporate paper is yielding 1.17% at present, so there is not much of a divergence between existing rates and implied December 2010 rates.

In terms of long-term rates, Canadian 10-year bonds have crept up to 2.98% at the end of November 10th trading. While this is not anything significant in terms of the range over the past 12 months, it is up about a quarter point over the past month. The big scare for real estate gurus out there was likely in the early second quarter (April) when 10-year bond rates went to 3.7%. Still, this is nothing close to the past decade’s average of 4.3%, and the peak rate of roughly 5.96% back in the year 2001.

I am struggling to make what is a rather boring interest rate post interesting, so I will leave it here.

Potash Corporation takeover should be approved

The Canadian government has until November 3 to make a decision on whether they will allow the takeover of Potash Corporation (TSX: POT) to proceed.

I do not know what the decision will be politically – the only time that the Canadian government has exercised its right to refuse a foreign takeover of a Canadian company was in 2008 when Macdonald Deitweiller (TSX: MDA) was prevented from selling itself as Canada did not want its sole satellite manufacturer going into foreign hands.

As a matter of public policy the sale should proceed. First, the buying company is overpaying. Secondly, the media (and Saskatchewan government) is making it sound like that Potash Corp is the only potash producer in Canada – while they are large, it is not the only source of Potash production in the country.

If the Canadian government refuses this sale, you will likely see any built-in takeover premiums of large Canadian companies be reduced. This is also an increasing trend as of late – governments trying to protect their strategic interests in natural resources, including oil and gas, uranium, water, metals and other resources. One wouldn’t be shocked to see the ultimate resource – intelligent people – be a future (but hidden) consideration in the future.

Politically, however, the decision might be different.