Monday’s session saw the S&P 500 and Toronto both essentially unchanged on the day.
There were no particularly notable moves in the stocks on our lost.
Trudeau continues to dole out more borrowed money. Every incremental dolalr of spending is borrowed money given the deficit.
On Wednesday there will be updated comments from the Back of Canada but no interest rate decrease is expected. On Friday the U.S inflation figures come out.
The CEO of Royal Bank was saying what a great thing it is that its takeover of HSBC will mean that the profits and dividends of that that bank will now flow to to Canadians. I think he mentioned $700 million per year. He did not mention that the purchase price presumably left this country.
He also grumbled that Canada now requires big banks to hold more capital than is required of large US banks. The US had been expected to adopt Basel III which Canada already has. Now the U.S. is backing off and RBC says unfair – it won’t be able to compete as well internationally he said. He wants a level playing field. Well in my view that’s just too bad, so say. Why should Canada change and make its big banks more risky just because the US wants to let big banks be more risky than contemplated under Basel III? The vast majority of Canadians are not cheering for a bit more profit at RBC. And perhaps the RBC CEO forgets that his operations in Canada are largely protected from US competition. Canadian banks buy up U.S. banks frequently but U.S. banks are not allowed to buy Canadian banks nor are they allowed to offer banking services in this country unless they open a subsidiary here. The whole Canadian financial sector is HIGHLY protected from foreign competition. No level playing field there. That’s something that seldom gets mentioned.