U.S. markets had been higher most of the day on Wednesday but ended the day moderately lower.
The S&P 500 was down 0.4%. But Toronto managed a 0.2% gain.
The Bank of Canada left interest rates unchanged. But in general, hopes that interest rates will soon start to go back down are fading. The 5 year Canada bond yield has been trending up somewhat after it had declined with the US bank run shock last month. Fixed term mortgage rates had declined somewhat in the past month. Further declines now seem less likely.
One of the Brookfield rate reset shares that I have been mentioning (BPO.PR.G) was up 4.7% but the other one (BPO.PR.A) was down 1.0%. A mixed message there.
Warren Buffett along with his second in command (Greg Abel) were interviewed today while on a trip to Japan to meet with five large “trading houses” that Berkshire invested in in late August 2020. Warren was asked about bank failures. He said that there would be more but that depositors would almost certainly be fully protected. His main message was that it is not something to worry about but the headline on CNBC focused on his statement that there would be more bank failures. But there are always some small bank failures in the U.S. every year so the focus should be on the fact that depositors have nothing to worry about.
I hesitate to say it but I thought that Buffett sounded just a bit less sharp than usual. Still VERY sharp, but maybe a little less so. Then again he was being interviewed in the dark probably after a long day of meetings and after a lot of travel and a huge time zone change. He is still sharp enough to mention that he is prepared to invest billions on extremely short notice when the opportunity arises.