One of the main events next week will be the Bank of Canada’s rate announcement and latest policy report, and other data are also slated for release.
Cogeco earnings
Cogeco Inc. and Cogeco Communications will release Q4 results after markets close on Tuesday. The company announced Wednesday its plans to buy internet and cable provider DERYTelecom for $405 million, adding about 100,000 internet and cable customers in its home province of Quebec.
Business openings
StatsCan will release its monthly estimate of business openings and closures for July on Wednesday. The agency recorded 56,296 business closures in June, an improvement from May but still 44% more than in February before the Covid-19 pandemic struck in force in Canada.
Interest rate announcement
The Bank of Canada will make its interest rate announcement and release its fall monetary policy report on Wednesday. The central bank has kept the key rate at its lower effective bound of 0.25% since March when Covid-19 lockdowns plunged the economy into crisis, and the central bank said it will remain there until the economic slack is absorbed and the 2% inflation target is “sustainably achieved.”
In a Friday report, CIBC World Markets chief economist Avery Shenfeld said the BoC’s main goal “will be to restrict itself to some fine tuning, and avoid any major shifts in a monetary policy stance that is working well, in an economy that isn’t.”
Shenfeld noted that the good news is July projections for both U.S. and Canadian GDP were “far too pessimistic,” and that the central bank’s core inflation measures have stabilized.
However, what will weigh on future projections is the fact that a “second wave has now arrived in Europe, the U.S. and much of Canada, and warrants some added caution” — especially since the BoC’s base case assumed there wouldn’t be a material resurgence of the virus.
As such, Shenfeld calls for neither hikes nor cuts.
“We might even just skip over a discussion of the policy rate, but for the fact that there are those wondering if the Bank of Canada would consider lowering it, a query we get in particular from clients eyeing developments in Europe, and what some consider to be Canada’s antipodal twin, Australia,” he said.
Despite rumblings about negative rates, he added that “repeated references to 0.25% as the effective lower bound speak volumes about the Bank’s disinclination.”
Shenfeld expects the loonie to “hang on to recent gains” despite stagnation in economic growth.
Oil patch earnings
Oilsands producer MEG Energy will report Q3 results on Monday, followed by Suncor, Husky Energy and Cenovus later in the week. While higher oil prices are expected to bolster returns, observers say a recent stall in the crude price recovery and ongoing oil market uncertainty make any increases in production and spending plans unlikely.
August GDP figures
StatsCan is set to release gross domestic product by industry figures for August on Friday. The agency previously said that real GDP grew by 3% in July, matching the agency’s preliminary estimate, compared with growth of 6.5% in June.