Last Week in the Markets: March 4^th – 8^th, 2024

What happened last week?

Canada’s TSX gained almost 1%, while American equity indexes lost the 1% for the Dow and NASDAQ and the S&P 500 lost ¼%.  The Canadian dollar beat its American counterpart by more than ½%.  Oil dropped for the fourth week in 2024 but is still 9% above its year end level.

on Wednesday, the Bank of Canada held its policy interest rate unchanged.  The overnight rate remains at 5%, the Bank Rate is 5¼%, and the deposit rate is 5%.  In Canada and the U.S., Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is more robust than predicted, while inflation is easing, but not yet at goal.  In January, the Canadian Consumer Price Index (CPI) was 2.9%.  “The Bank continues to expect inflation to remain close to 3% during the first half of this year before gradually easing”.  Tiff Macklem, Bank of Canada Governor stated.  He continued, “We don’t want inflation to get stuck, materially, above our target.”  The next scheduled interest rate announcements from the Bank are April 10^th and June 5^th.  BoC release   CBC and BoC 

After Thursday evening’s State of the Union address by President Biden, the latest U.S. employment data was released on Friday morning before markets opened.  In February, 275,000 new jobs were added, which exceeded analyst expectations that settled at 200,000.  February’s additional jobs is above the average monthly gain of 230,000 over that last year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.  Job gains were concentrated in health care, government and food services and drinking places, social assistance, transportation, and warehousing.  The unemployment rate rose 0.2% to 3.9% and totalled 6.5 million, up by 500,000 over February 2023.  U.S. equities opened higher, before falling back and losing ground by the end of the day and week.  BLS release   CNBC and jobs

What’s ahead for this week and beyond?

In Canada, a quieter following last week’s Bank of Canada announcement with manufacturing sales, housing starts, wholesale trade, foreign and domestic investment, are scheduled for release.

In the U.S., the Consumer Price Index (CPI), Producer Price Index (PPI), export and import price indexes, retail sales, business inventories, federal budget, and industrial production and capacity utilization will be reported.  March 20^th brings the next Federal Reserve interest rate announcement, which will be based on domestic and international inflation levels and projections.  IMF inflation projections

Globally, announcements are scheduled for China’s outstanding loan growth and house prices, Germany’s consumer and wholesale inflation, Great Britain’s trade balance, manufacturing, industrial and construction output, and the European Union’s industrial production.