Briefing highlights
- Insolvencies on rise
- TSX, Canadian dollar at a glance
- New York closed for Independence Day
- Toronto realtors see stronger Spring market
- Required Reading
Insolvencies on rise
More Canadians are finding they can’t juggle their finances.
Insolvencies among consumers rose in May to 12,375, up 5 per cent from April and 8.6 per cent from a year earlier, the latest statistics from the Office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy show.
There are two types of insolvency: One is outright bankruptcy, the other a “proposal” under which a consumer offers creditors new terms to pay debts.
The number of bankruptcies climbed 6.2 per cent in May from April, to 5,163, though that marked a drop of 1.9 per cent from a year earlier.
Proposals, in turn, rose 4.2 per cent on a month-to-month basis, to 7,212, and a sharp 17.5 per cent from a year earlier.
While insolvencies are rising, the delinquency rate is still small.
And at least some pressure is off as the Bank of Canada isn’t expected to raise interest rates again for quite some time. Indeed, some observers believe the central bank could cut its benchmark rate amid global economic uncertainty.
And the pace of credit growth has certainly slowed in Canada after federal, B.C. and Ontario policy makers moved to cool down frothy housing markets and head off a debt bust via tax and other measures and, key to all this, new mortgage-qualification stress tests.
Read more
- Matt Lundy: Canadian households are spending more than ever on debt payments
- More Canadians can’t make ends meet, file for insolvency
- Why so many Canadians could be in so much trouble in an economic shock (notably in B.C., Ontario)
- David Parkinson: Bank of Canada’s Poloz’s housing musings speak to the bank’s biggest risk factor
- Ian McGugan: Canada needs a better picture of how households are faring
- Debt and wealth: So many Canadians are either messed up or poor
- Rob Carrick: This is why Canadians are so stressed out about money despite good economic times
- ‘You may not be as rich as you think’: Canadian families face a long road back to financial health
- Many Canadians say they’ll have to tap RRSPs, take second mortgages, sell assets as debt burden rises
Toronto home sales, prices rise
Toronto realtors are boasting of a stronger Spring market as home sales and prices perk up from a depressed 2018.
“Buyers started moving off the sidelines in the Spring, as evidenced by strong year-over-year price growth throughout the second quarter,” Jason Mercer, the Toronto Real Estate Board’s chief market analyst, said today as the group released its June numbers.
Greater Toronto Area home sales climbed 10.4 per cent in June from a year earlier, to 8,860, which was down from a month earlier.
Average prices rose 3 per cent to $832,703, also down from May, while the MLS home price index, which is considered a better measure, rose 3.6 per cent.
“All told, this is playing out largely as expected, with the market firming up after absorbing past policy changes, and with the help of meaningfully lower five-year fixed mortgage rates,” said Bank of Montreal senior economist Robert Kavcic.
Read more
- Toronto realtors boast of stronger spring market as bidding wars drive prices
- Brent Jang: Greater Vancouver housing sales fall to 19-year low as benchmark price dips below $1-million
- Rob Carrick: We need to come clean with millennials on big-city home ownership dreams
- B.C. home prices won’t hit bottom until 2020, TD says
- ‘Green shoots’ in the housing market: A cross-Canada look that shows if you’re in buyers’ or sellers’ territory
- CREA hikes forecast as Canadian home sales post biggest annual increase since 2016
- Canada’s housing market tumbles in global ranking, but ‘opportunistic buyers’ are afoot
- Carolyn Ireland: A fickle housing market with price-sensitive buyers
- Hitting market bottom: A five-year forecast for house prices in 33 Canadian cities
- How Toronto’s housing market shrank by billions
Markets at a glance
Read more
Ticker
French lawmakers approve tax
From The Associated Press: France’s lower house of parliament approved a small, pioneering tax on Internet giants like Google, Amazon and Facebook – and the French government hopes other countries will follow suit.
William Hill to close shops
From Reuters: William Hill plans to close 700 of its 2,300 British betting shops, putting about 4,500 jobs, a third of its work force, at risk after the government cut the maximum stake on fixed-odds betting terminals to tackle problem gambling.
Required Reading
Behind the shuffle
Jameson Berkow, Tim Kiladze and Andrew Willis take a deep look at how financial losses and rising tensions led to Bruce Linton’s firing as co-CEO at Canopy Growth.
Facebook sought user data
Facebook sought to force outside developers to share customer data with the social-media giant or risk losing access to personal information about Facebook users, leaked company documents reveal. Tamsin McMahon reports.
Uncertainty weighs
Trade uncertainty and a gloomy economic outlook prompted many Canadian companies to delay their public market debuts, opting instead for cash infusions from private-equity investors, Alexandra Posadzki writes.