Juggling Dynamite

Nancy Lazar, Piper Sandler global chief economist, joins ‘Money Movers’ to discuss whether Tuesday’s economic data changes any of the economists’ forecasts, whether the Federal Reserve has room to focus on its employment mandate, and more. Here is a direct video link.

Also, see, Investors return to bonds as recession fears stalk markets:

Investors are piling back into bonds as recession replaces inflation as markets’ main fear, and fixed income proves its worth as a hedge against the recent stock market chaos.

US Treasuries and other highly rated debt staged a powerful rally during last week’s equity rout, pulling yields to their lowest level in more than a year. While the sharpest moves subsequently reversed, fund managers say they underscored the appeal of bonds in an environment where growth is slowing, inflation is falling and the Federal Reserve — along with other major central banks — is expected to deliver multiple cuts in interest rates by the end of the year.

…“The best protection against a downside scenario like a recession is Treasury bonds,” said Robert Tipp, head of global bonds at PGIM Fixed Income.

“The arguments for fixed income are really strong. Sometimes people need a shove to move out of cash. The drop-off in employment has really made that [happen],” said Tipp.

A Bloomberg index that tracks both US government and high-quality corporate bonds has gained 2 per cent since late July, contrasting with a 6 per cent loss for the S&P 500. The biggest gain for bonds came on the day of the employment report when stocks sank sharply.

In a world awash in information, relevant facts are hard to find.

Former Fed staffer and founder of QI Research Danielle DiMartino Booth joins Mike and Harley to discuss her October 2023 recession call. Here is a direct video link.

From January to May this year, there was an average of 20 real estate, rental or leasing insolvencies in Canada every month where companies either sought bankruptcy protection or filed creditor proposals.

At this pace, Canada is on track to reach about 240 corporate real estate insolvencies in 2024, which would be 57% more than in 2023 and 13% more than in 2009, when a wide swath of businesses ran into problems owing to the financial crisis and global recession.  See Real estate insolvencies in Canada set to surpass levels of global financial crisis:

And that does not include the number of developers and projects that have been forced into receivership for not paying bills. The Office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy does not include receiverships with its publicly available bankruptcy statistics. However, insolvency experts say they are seeing more projects go into receivership.

So far this year, the real estate sector accounts for 55 per cent of the receiverships recorded by Insolvency Insider Canada, a website that tracks the largest insolvencies in the country. That compares to 30 per cent last year and 33 per cent in 2022.