On Wednesday the S&P 500 was down 0.2% while Toronto was down 0.5%.
TFI International was up 5.0% due to its strong earnings report.
The Bank of Canada indicates that it no longer has a bias toward higher interest rates. The five year Canada bond yield is at 1.5%. It is amazing how many times an upward movement in interest rates has fizzled out over the years. Looking at the 5 year government bond yield, going back to 1999, every upward trend has ended and then headed even lower. With the exception that we are still above the lows of 2016. Interest rates are notoriously hard to predict. My bet at this time would be that rates stay about where they are.
Given the above confirmation from the Bank of Canada, the Canadian dollar fell to 74.1 U.S. cents. Not good for Canadians traveling abroad, not good for importers or the prices of imported items but good for exporters – including oil and gas exporters.
Taking a look at rail car loading reports for Canada they are currently running noticeably higher than 2018. They did dip in the last two weeks but there was similar dip in the same weeks last year. The latest data was reported today. Intermodal (consumer goods) was up 10% in the latest week versus last year. Petroleum car loads are up quite noticeably versus 2018. But overall total car load traffic year to date is up only 2.3%.