Bank of Canada Holds Interest Rate

The Bank of Canada is keeping its key interest rate unchanged and appears to be in no hurry to move the interest rate any time soon because the announcement today removed all mentions of a need for future increases.

The bank says the economy was operating close to full tilt for most of the past two years before a sudden deceleration in the final months of last year, which was largely caused by a drop in oil prices and unexpectedly weak numbers for investment and exports.

In new projections today, the bank is predicting growth of real gross domestic product of 1.2% for 2019 and projecting growth of just 0.3% in the first quarter of 2019, though it’s predicting the economy to pick up its pace in the second quarter on expectations of stronger housing activity, consumption and business investment.

For those with variable rate mortgages, its reasonable to assume that you should be safe from an increase in prime for at least the rest of 2019.

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The Coastal Key’ Team