On Wednesday, the Bank of Canada held firm on interest rates at 1.75% while the FED lowered by 0.25% to 1.50%. But the Canada statement was interpreted as signalling a possible cut ahead and the FED statement was interpreted as signalling this may be it for rate cuts.
The Canadian dollar fell on the news. Apparently yesterday was the day to buy U.S. dollars, or at least ws better than today. I was wanting to transfer some Canadian dollars to U.S. but will wait ans see if our dollar rebounds from today’s little decline.
The S&P 500 ended the day up 0.3% and Toronto was up 0.5%.
Constellation Software was up 2.1%.
After the close, Starbucks reported a strong quarter with U.S. same-store sales up 6%. This is a stock worth considering.
Apple Inc. also reported after the close and while the revenue growth was modest, the results were apparently better than expected as the stock is up modestly in after hours trading.
The latest rail car loading reports are out. In the U.S. they remain weak, running below the levels of 2018, 2017 and 2016 but there was an improvement versus last week. In Canada there was a sharper improvement and rail car loadings were equal to the 2017 level and well above 2016 but below last year’s level.
The yield on the 5 year Canada bond fell sharply down 16 basis points today. But, strangely, the rate reset preferred shares mostly did not decline on that news and instead some were up.