The survey, conducted by TNS Canadian Facts, shows their Consumer Confidence Index at 99.2, up 6% from July, when it was at 93.4.

The three subindexes that combine to track overall consumer confidence posted gains during the month, with the Expectations Index seeing the greatest shift: up 8.5 points to 111.1 from 102.6 in July.

The subindex tracks consumer sentiment for the economy, household income and employment in the next six months.

The Present Situation and Buy indexes also increased during the month.

“Consumer confidence has been trending upward since it fell to an all-time low last December,” Michael Antecol, director of the monthly study, said in a release Thursday.

More..

A Research In Motion BlackBerry Storm is pictured in New York. LUCAS JACKSON/REUTERS

When it comes to recovery on the markets, few areas have posted as robust a rebound as the technology sector. Which leads to a rather obvious question: Is it too late for investors to jump in?

After all, it can be dangerous to get into a sector after it bounces some 50 per cent off its lows. Or at least, those were the old rules – rules that were written before one of the most spectacular market crashes in history.

The tech index on the S&P/TSX is up a resounding 36 per cent since the beginning of the year, and an even more impressive 52 per cent from its March 9 lows. With a gain of 37 per cent, only the financial services sector is up more in 2009.

“You’re not supposed to jump in after such a run, but counteracting that is the fact that we are not in the late stages of an economic cycle,” said Duncan Stewart, director of research and analysis at DSAM Consulting. “If we are indeed in a recovery, it’s still early. And technology tends to do well early in a recovery – always has, and probably always will.”

More..

• People Advantage: Canada is a nation of intelligent, educated workers, ranking #1 in the OECD in higher education achievement.
• Business Environment Advantage: The Economic Intelligence Unit has rated Canada the #1 place to do business in the G7 for the next five years.
• Economic Advantage: Canada is better placed than many countries to weather the global financial turbulence and worldwide recession.
• Tax Advantage: Canada offers businesses low tax rates, boasting the lowest payroll taxes among the G7 countries.
• NAFTA Advantage: Canada ’s NAFTA advantage gives investors access to more than 443 million consumers and a combined GDP of more than US$15.4 trillion.
• The Asia-Pacific Gateway and Corridor Initiative (APGCI): Take advantage of Canada’s strategic location as the crossroads between the North American marketplace and the booming economies of Asia

More..

The quarterly index gained nine points since March and now stands at 20, which is 15 points up from what it was in December, when it hit the lowest level in a decade.

Manulife calculates the index by subtracting the percentage of those who say they believe it is not a good or very good time to invest from those who feel the opposite.

Nine out of 10 investment categories were ahead in the poll taken in June, the company said.

Investment property had the largest jump, adding 18 points after a 23-point gain in March.

“Canadians seem more interested in real estate, equity and investment funds after a stretch of gloomy economic news since late last year,” Paul Rooney, president and CEO of Manulife Canada, said in a news release.

Equities gained 13 points to –8, the only category among the 10 still in negative territory.

Along with the confidence in investing, the respondents also said they expect they will be as well or better off six months from now.

About a third said they thought they would be better off, just over half said they would be the same and just one is seven said they would be worse off.

More..

The recession is over, but not the pain.

Canada’s central bank predicted Thursday that the economy would expand this quarter, suggesting the economic contraction lasted for about nine months, considerably shorter than the previous two recessions in the early 1990s and the early 1980s.

The Bank of Canada’s reassessment of the state of the economy is perhaps the clearest signal yet that the worst of the recession is over.

Buoyed by the prospect of better days ahead, investors rushed to buy Canadian stocks, adding new life to an near five-month rally that economists said has played a big role in reversing Canada’s fortunes.

The Standard & Poor’s/TSX Composite Index rose 243.33 points to 10,675.68, the highest in six weeks. Canada’s dollar jumped about 1 per cent to 92.04 U.S. cents, the strongest in almost two months.

Yet Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney stopped short of celebration, saying it will take more than a year to replace the wealth destroyed by the financial crisis.

More..

Canada’s economic recovery is likely to be far stronger than markets anticipate, a Bay Street economist forecast Wednesday, indicating that a “burst” of 10% growth is possible in the coming quarters.

The prediction from Sheryl King, chief economist and strategist at Merrill Lynch Canada, comes amid fierce debate over what shape the recovery will take following the deepest recession since the Second World War.

“Markets think we are going to get this gradual rise in growth, and then everything is going to be fine,” Ms. King said in an interview. “But business cycles never end like that. You usually get some pop in growth.”

Those who argue that a strong rebound, rather than a slow, weak recovery, is in the offing were handed a key piece of evidence Wednesday when major U.S. credit-card providers, led by American Express Co., reported defaults and delinquencies were less than expected in June. This may signal that U.S. consumers’ credit positions — up until now, the missing piece in the U.S. recovery puzzle — are not deteriorating as rapidly as feared, despite rising unemployment and the continuing housing slump.

More..

Canada’s inflation rate for June was negative 0.3%, marking the first time since November 1994 overall prices have declined on a 12-month basis.

Statistics Canada said the decline in prices was primarily due to a 19% drop in energy prices, particularly gasoline. Excluding energy, prices were up 2.1% from a year earlier.

It marked the biggest drop in prices since 1955.

The inflation rate was 0.1% in May.

June’s annualized drop in prices was in line with expectations of analysts polled by Bloomberg.

The price for regular gasoline averaged $1.016 a litre last month, down more than 24% from $1.351 a litre a year earlier, Statistics Canada said Friday.

More..

Canadian business expect better conditions ahead for the economy, and hold positive expectations for sales growth as well as employment, the Bank of Canada says in its Summer Business Outlook Survey.

The turn in sentiment is a dramatic change to expectations taken in Spring, but businesses still foresee a level of difficulty ahead and expect activity to recover gradually.

The quarterly survey found 69% of businesses had reported lower sales in the past 12 months. However, 61% expected sales to rise over the year, compared with just 30% previously.

Pressures on production capacity remained low and few firms faced labour shortages.

“The percentage of firms reporting that labour shortages are restricting their ability to meet demand changed only slightly and remains at a low level,” the survey of 100 businesses found. “A majority of respondents indicated that labour shortages were less intense than 12 months ago, because the demand for labour has declined during the recession.”

More..

There is growing consensus that a global economic recovery is in the making, albeit the pace will be tepid and restrained. Momentum should, however, build through 2010 and 2011.

The question we should start asking is, ‘What comes next?’ In part this will depend upon the skill and will of central bankers. They will need to withdraw their unprecedented monetary stimulus with surgical precision– not so quickly as to jeopardize recovery but not so slowly as to stoke the inflation fire.

But the world economy will still be a dangerous place. In the name of mitigating the downturn, the U. S. federal government will go from around a 40% debt-to-GDP ratio to 100% within a few years and many states are racking up large fiscal shortfalls as well. The United States will not likely deal with this exploding debt very well. They will find it difficult to cut spending or raise taxes sufficiently. Even if financial sector regulations are improved around the world, this type of imbalance could provoke the next economic cycle. And even if another crisis is avoided, the United States will be exporting to the world lower growth, a depreciating dollar and premiums on bond yields as the inexhaustible supply of debt floods the global markets.

More.. ]]> http://www.invest-in-canada.com/news/what-comes-after-the-great-recession.htm/feed 0