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Monday’s CPI Could Decide Your Next Mortgage Payment

  Canada lost 68,000 jobs in September. Inflation is sitting at 3%. The Bank of Canada has to decide on October 28 which of those facts matters more, and on Monday morning one more number lands to help it choose. If you carry a variable-rate mortgage, a HELOC or a renewal this winter, that number has a price tag. Two reports pulling in opposite directions The jobs data came first. Statistics Canada reported on October 9 that employment fell by 68,000 in September, pushing the unemployment rate to 6.5% from 6.4%. It followed a drop of about 42,000 in August, which means more than half of the 181,000 jobs gained between April and July have now been wiped out. Ontario shed 20,000 positions on its own. Markets reacted within hours: the odds of a quarter-point Bank of Canada hike on October 28 dropped to roughly 25% from about 40%, according to LSEG data reported by Reuters. Inflation is telling the opposite story. The consumer price index rose 3.0% year over year in August, matching Ju...

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Stocks Rally, Yields Fall on Fed’s Mixed Messages



The stock market rallied and bond yields fell after the Federal Reserve sent mixed messages about its future policy. 

The Federal Reserve is in a “sweet spot” and may start cutting interest rates in the first half of 2024. The rally in the bond market is driving global bonds to their best month since 2008. The Bank of Japan left its policy rate unchanged and appeared in no hurry to remove negative interest rates. The yen slumped as much as 1.1% to the weakest level in a week, while the Nikkei 225 Index rallied 1.4% to a two-week high.


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