Canada: A busy week ahead – NBF

In Canada, the central bank will have its meeting next week. Also employment data is due.   Analysts at National Bank of Canada expect no change from the Bank of Canada and a moderation in the labour market data with a net change of -20K in employment.

Key Quotes:

“The highlight of the week will be the central bank’s monetary policy meeting. Like most analysts, we expect the Bank of Canada to stay on the sidelines this time, possibly following the Fed’s lead in evoking global uncertainty and controlled inflation as reasons to stay patient. GDP growth, which the Bank expects to stay relatively subdued in Q1, should provide yet another incentive to hold rates steady. Although no press conference is scheduled following the announcement, a speech set to be delivered by Deputy Governor Patterson on Thursday should provide some valuable insight.”

“February’s labour force survey will also be available. No less than 230K jobs were added in the country over the past five months, the best performance since 2002. That pace is unsustainable and we suspect we’ll see a sharp moderation in February. We’re calling for a -20K print. The unemployment rate, meanwhile, should stay put at 5.8%.”  

“The week will also provide some important information about the state of the housing market with the publication of January’s building permits and February’s housing starts. The latter may have totaled 215K in seasonally adjusted annualized terms if, as we believe, groundbreakings for multis in Quebec rose to a level more in tune with the growing number of permits granted in this category in recent months.”

“December’s merchandise trade balance will be available on Wednesday. Current account data released this week implied a deterioration of the merchandise balance to around -C$4.3 billion in the month.”