Farmer Diaries

It seems that Canada's economy didn't generate much growth in May -- it actually contracted by 0.3%!  Primary cause was the energy sector, a  combination of summer shutdown and very adverse weather (such as huge forest fires) cause the sector to go negative to the tune of 5.2%.  For those who don't remember April GDP growth was a big fat zero! Now that's not to say that the rest of Canada's economy shines a beacon of growth.  In fact, the rest of the economy was either flat or exhibited small drop, primary downer number was manufacturing which was down 0.4% for the month. Obviously the numbers announced by the Americans this morning (Q1/11 GDP number was revised down from 1.9% to 0.4%, and Q2/11 was revised from 1.7% to 1.3%), hardly helped.  Canadian interest rate futures are down to 37 bps, which tells you that Canadian interest rates are going nowhere fast, the probability of an increase in Canadian benchmark rates is zero for 2011, and very small for Q1/12...

An article in the Globe and Mail this morning discuss how four of Canada's largest banks used the market turmoil to raise cheap cash.  In fact, the cost of debt for Canadian banks over the past few months (5 year paper) has dropped.  Canadian banks' funding base for 5 year debt is based off the Bank of Canada's 5 year treasury rate (the Canadian benchmark) which has declined from 2.9% to 2.15% today.     All the money being invested in Canada is having a dramatic impact on Canadian sovereign and corporate yields.  For Canadian banks, worried about the risk of contagion -- their biggest fears are, as Rumsfeld famously described "Unknown unknowns", raising cash makes perfect sense, especially since there is strong demand for Canadian banks paper.   Problems in the financial system can arise from unexpected directions that will surprise bankers' liquidity.  So far the markets are calm, Futures are down.  There's a bit of Fed POMO activity this mor...

If any proof was required, today from StatsCan From April to May, average weekly earnings of non-farm payroll employees increased 0.5% to $875.64. On a year-over-year basis, average weekly earnings were 3.3% higher compared with May 2010.  Whereas American income is static, in Canada income continues to rise.  However, inflation up here is a bigger problem than south of the border.  In fact, two of the principal daily expense of Canadians are food and fuel and both are up substantially more (4.8% and 9% respectively) than income. Still, they don't represent 100% of Canadians' monthly expenditure. Canada is looking at growth of income and that's what's important.  My guess is that the strength of the CAD will mute inflation pressures, although one of the most important source of inflation in Canada are services....In terms of "where the earnings are being generated"  Warehousing services and manufacturing are the le...

Sorry for the infrequent posts, its just that there's not much to talk about up here in the great white north! Anyway, Canada's "Case Shiller Index" the Teranet - National Bank House Price Index came out today, guess what, house prices are up again (+1.3%) for May 2011 (for a total of Y0Y _4.4% increase in prices) -- shock and surprise, below is a reproduction of the 6 city national index So that's about it, Canadian prices continue to rise.  Oil is at $99/bbl and despite the strength of oil prices the only city that is lagging in price rise in Calgary -- Canada's "oil town".  Vancouver which is already one of the world's most expensive real estate is the big winner with a 6.6% increase in price, followed by Montreal at 6.3%. Another argument for Mark Carney, the Governor of the Bank of Canada.  Although events south of the border would seem to preclude any increase in Canadian interest rates.

Back in the saddle after two weeks of R&R it is strange to see the world’s problem to be the same they were a fortnight ago.   The British characterization of the GOP as a “Bunch of Nutters” was a good expression of the world’s view of America , and to a certain extent the exasperation of seeing an artificial crisis.   Despite what the GOP is saying that we got to put the credit card away, the debt ceiling crisis is about having spent the money and not wanting to pay the bill.   So far the markets are calm, down a bit, but nothing to set your hair in fire. Up here in the Frozen North, statistics do not wait for those on holidays!   Consumer price index for June was released in Friday, while not as bad as May’s number of 3.7%, 3.1% is hardly a source of happiness, especially when you consider that the two outstanding items were food (4.8%) and energy (15%) – with Gasoline up 28%... Nevertheless, prices on a seasonally adjusted basis were down 0.4%, so there is...

Many years ago, landing for the first time in Tokyo, i finally understood the Gozzila movies. As a child of the sixties, ultra-man was part of my daily TV intake, granted you could see the zippers of the monster's costumes, but it was the city that always turned me off, it just didn't look real, until I landed in Tokyo. Tokyo looked like a city in the Gozzila flicks. The same goes for French movies, they have a certain look that is all theirs, one reason is French cars; Renault, Citroen, and Pegeot. After about a week in the French outback i realised why French movie have that particular look, virtually all cars here are built by French companies, a few German cars, but virtually no Japanes cars! I don't know why, there is no doubt that the French are chovinistic, still. Another thing that suprised me is the number of "France blanche" signposts (white france), I'm in an extremely rural part of France, the population here is 99% white, still, they resent ...

Don't know how reliable internet will be "en vacances", so see you all in 2 weeks, more or less!

In May 2011 Canada created 22,000 jobs, America created 25,000 In June 2011 Canada created 28,000 jobs, America created 18,000 In June 2011 the birth/death model added 131,000 jobs to the American  numbers (There is no birth/death model in Canada nor does Canada retro-actively adjust its job creation numbers -- No, I don't know why!). Just saying,

Although the headline number is better than May (where the number of jobs created was 22k) it is somewhat disappointing  first June is the month in which youth (temporary) labor spikes up in, as the students leave school and enter the job market to provide for beer money during the next school year.  Hence although 28,000 jobs were created the unemployment rate didn't budge at 7.4% -- it is a high participation rate that accounts for all the increase in the labor force.  Moreover, the bulk of the job creation was in part time work, as opposed to the may data that was mostly an increase in full time jobs. On the 12 month rolling numbers 238,000 jobs were created (1.4%) which is actually an expression of strong economy (and removes the seasonal factor element of the equation).  Where the numbers get bad, 55k jobs were created in the public sector, and only 22k were created in the private sector.  apparently, it is self employed workers which accounted for th...

Yesterday, a rating agency (not my favorite people) downgraded Portugal's debt 4 notches to junk!  The implications for Portugal was serious, and the pricing of Portugal's sovereign debt rose to 12% (unsustainable).  This should have been the beginning of the end for the "Kick the Can" crowd, ECB/IMF and EU would finally have to face the reality that several European countries have intractable problems that will require some hard decisions. I've often stated in this blog that the current generation of European managers will avoid at all cost the ending (in any form) of the Euro.  The reason is that it is their dream -- they are the architects of the Euro (with all its flaws, and successes -- these too are important).  Obviously Europe's bureaucrats are pissed with the rating agencies (i'm pissed too that they allowed Greece, Ireland and Iceland to maintain AAA ratings for so long when the rot was apparent to all) and this morning (this afternoon in Europ...

The leaks are out, and most of the 26 banks that are in in need of immediate capital (and maybe require too much capital to remain solvent.  Some names are obvious:  Irish banks and insurance companies, others are suprising; WestLB and Bayerisher Landesbank.  That the second tier Portuguese and Spanish banks are in trouble is no surprise, and obviously the "prime" Irish banks are on the list too.  The European central bank investigated the risk associated 91 European banks and found 26 in trouble.  Also included in one of the two Cypriot banks (surprisingly not both!) What is amazing is that on the base case scenario the shortfall is around Euro 45 billion (for the Spanish institutions) but it is Euro 119 billion if the stress test is employed.  That's a lot of money! See the Zero Hedge article.

The title says it all, wage inflation is rising in Canada.  This blog (and many many others) have been concerned that the BoC ultra accommodative interest rate policy would cause wages to rise substantially faster than warranted.  In a sense, it is a good reflection of the CPI which as of April 2011 has risen by 3.7%, but it also means that the lag that one would expect between wage inflation and price inflation is absent (which makes no sense), there is a problem here that will have to be addressed sooner rather than later.   A combination of factors  are at play here: (1)  Canadian unemployment at 7.1% (and 6.1% if using American statistical methodology) is getting close to the historical average of 5.5%,  (2)  The Bank of Canada has made certain assumptions about Canada's output gap (the difference between potential and actual GDP), which still assumes a 15% gap (Q4/10 data).  Several economists take the view that this doe...

Spending Canada day weekend at the cottage I had run out food, and so off I was to the nearby supermarket.  While exiting my car I am hailed by a young man who's just exited the store with his young (2 year old) son in arms (I've known him my entire life).  He's the third generation plumber of a family enterprise.  It was started by his grandfather in the late 60s when our cottage area, although gorgeous, was largely undeveloped -- the motorway ended many miles away, and so to get to this location on a Friday evening often involved more than 2 hours of driving , to far  for most cottage goers. The enterprise grew slowly but surely as road access improved dramatically during the 1970s, leading to an explosion of cottages in the area.  Moreover, the price of these (and size) also exploded.  During this time this small, well regarded firm grew.  There were ups and down (especially in the mid 80s when things got difficult).  The grandson (my in...

Not entirely surprising, since oil has been in the $90/100 range for a few months, producer price indices have gone negative for a bit. Industrial producer prices are off by 0.2% and raw material prices are down 5.2% (over one month) again the volatility of oil prices is largely to blame here.  A week ago, the WTI traded as low as 89.95, while this morning it "opened" near 95.50 a 6% increase in 7 days. However, StatsCan had more information on raw materials, not only are prices falling but inventories are rising  (especially aluminum), this could be temporary or an indication of something more permanent.  Car sales stats that came out Friday last week (U.S.) were disappointing.  Although the recent Japanese discovery of rare metals in the sea off the coast of Hawaii  in quantities (and concentration 1,000x larger than what is available on land) could be interesting  The not so good news is that the IPPI (Industrial Producer Pri...