Bonds & Interest Rates
The Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose 0.9% in the 12 months to November, following a 0.7% increase in October. November marked the 7th time in the last 13 months in which the CPI increased less than 1.0% on a year-over-year basis.
Canadian dollar futures traded below 93.00 briefly but have since recovered to 93.30.
Drew Zimmerman
Investment & Commodities/Futures Advisor
604-664-2842 – Direct
604 664 2900 –
604 664 2666 – Fax
800 810 7022 – Toll Free
Canadian regulators urged the government to approve the country’s first overseas oil-export project on Thursday, concluding that Enbridge Inc’s C$7.9 billion (US$7.4 billion) Northern Gateway pipeline plan posed little risk to the environment if the company complied with some 200 conditions.
Two years after a panel of environmental and energy regulators began hearings into the project, it sided against the line’s many opponents and recommended the completion of a project that would allow Canada to expand sales of crude extracted from its oil sands to Asia.
Starting near Edmonton, Alberta, Northern Gateway would run 1,177 km (730 miles) – mostly through the pristine wilderness of northern British Columbia – to Kitimat, a deepwater port on the Pacific Coast.
full article HERE
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper on Thursday brushed aside any suggestion he might step down in the next couple of years, saying he would seek a fourth term in the 2015 general election.
“It is interesting to read in the papers one day that I plan to retire, and the next day to read that I intend to trigger elections immediately,” he said in a television interview with the French-language TVA Nouvelles.
“The reality is there are elections on a fixed date in 2015. I intend to lead my party (into the next election), which is the only party which has serious policy on the number one priority of the population, which is the economy.”
….read more HERE
Japan’s central bank held its massive monetary expansion unchanged on Friday, and played down chances of the need for an extra dose next year as it took heart from the U.S. Federal Reserve’s decision to begin tapering its own mega-stimulus.
Speaking after a Bank of Japan policy-setting meeting, Governor Haruhiko Kuroda welcomed the Fed’s move as a sign that the U.S. economy is recovering steadily, which bodes well for global growth and Japan.
The widening interest rate gap between Japan and the United States, as the BOJ maintains its ultra-easy policy while the Fed winds down its stimulus, is likely to keep the yen weak against the dollar, analysts say.
The dollar hit a fresh five-year high of 104.59 yen on Friday, extending the weak-yen trend that has helped Japan’s export-reliant economy emerge from stagnation.
…full article HERE










