Compiled by MarketsFarm
WINNIPEG, June 15 (MarketsFarm) – The following is a glance at the news moving markets in Canada and globally.
- Economic growth in China stumbled during May, according to the country’s National Bureau of Statistics on Thursday. The NBS said industrial output that month was 3.5 per cent, falling from 5.6 per cent in April. Retail sales slipped from 18.4 per cent growth in April to 12.7 per cent in May. Thursday also saw the People’s Bank of China chop 10 basis points from its one-year medium-term lending facility loans, bringing its interest rate down to 2.65 per cent.
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- Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation reported on Thursday that housing starts in the country dropped 23 per cent in May at 202,494. The most notable declines were in Vancouver (down 45 per cent), Montreal (down 35 per cent) and Toronto (down 28 per cent). CMHC noted the annual rate of urban starts fell 24 per cent at 182,842 and multi-unit urban starts retreated 30 per cent at 139,890. Meanwhile, single-detached urban starts were up six per cent at 42,952.
- The European Central Bank upped its interest rate by 25 basis points to 3.5 per cent on Thursday. That made for its eighth-consecutive hike and its highest rate since May 2001. The ECB acknowledged inflation has eased back in the European Union, but consumer prices still increased 6.1 per cent in May. However, that’s the lowest inflation in the EU since Russia invaded Ukraine. As with other central banks in the world, the ECB wants to reduce inflation to two per cent. Analysts already expect another 25-basis-point hike in July.
- The United States Federal Reserve kept its key interest rate at 5.1 per cent on Wednesday after 10 consecutive increases. However, Fed chair Jerome Powell said the central bank is leaving the door open to further rate increases down the road, stressing “that some further rate increases will be appropriate this year to bring inflation down to two per cent over time.”
