May 16, 2012

The Minutes of the April 24/25 FOMC meeting indicated that Committee members viewed that the economy "continued to expand moderately" in the period since the last meeting in March. While some members noted increased confidence in the "durability of the recovery", other cautioned against prematurely inferring strong underlying trends...

May 16, 2012

The FOMC Minutes was released. As far as stimulus goes: “Several members indicated that additional monetary policy accommodation could be necessary if the economic recovery lost momentum or the downside risks to the forecast became great enough”. This is just rhetoric, and actually not as strong as we saw in...

May 16, 2012

US industrial production jumped 1.1% in April, beating market expectations going into the report for a 0.6% increase. The previously reported flat readings for both February and March were revised to show changes of +0.4% and -0.6%, respectively, though the net impact of the revisions saw the first-quarter average...

May 16, 2012

Privately owned housing starts in the US rose 2.6% in April to an annualized pace of 717,000 units, from a revised 699,000 units in March (previously reported as 654K,000) Market expectations going into the report had been for an increase to 685,000 (+4.7%) while RBC looked for a 2.4%...

May 16, 2012

Canadian manufacturing sales rose 1.9% in March, rebounding from 0.2% and 2.3% drops in February and January, respectively. Much of the gain in March was concentrated in transportation and petroleum and coal sales, with more modest, albeit still solid, gains elsewhere. Boosting the transportation component, motor vehicle sales climbed...