Juggling Dynamite

The Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI) will launch a new consultation on the stress test Thursday with the goal of determining whether changes are needed to the framework that dictates whether or not borrowers can qualify for a loan.

…The fresh round of consultations come more than a year after OSFI abandoned its review of the measures. The watchdog dropped its consultations in mid-March of 2020 due to COVID-19 uncertainty, as many policymakers feared the pandemic would send home prices spiralling. Here is a direct video link.

Even as many global stock and commodity markets have rebounded above pre-pandemic levels in recent months, economic recovery is far from globally synchronous.  Costs of the pandemic and worst economic downturn since the 1930s are continuing to compound.

The emergence of a global middle class has been one of the most significant trends in the past few decades. But, that phenomenon has been upended by the Coronavirus pandemic. The demographic shrank last year for the first time since the 1990s with about 150 million people falling out of the global middle class, down the socioeconomic ladder. Here is a direct video link.

At the end of March 2020, stock, commodity and corporate debt markets rebounded sharply in anticipation of reopening data that improved later last summer.  Today, the question is when will these same markets start repricing slower growth and revenue heading into the second half of 2021, some three months hence?  If they are still leading indicators, anytime now would be typical.

The segment below is a good overview of why inflation, growth expectations and asset multiples are all up for review as we transition into the third quarter.

David Rosenberg, Chief Economist and Strategist at Rosenberg Research, talks to Financial Post’s Larysa Harapyn about where the economy and inflation are going and Canada’s hot housing market.  Here is a direct video link.