Your monthly economic monitor

Hello everyone and welcome to Economic Impact. Today is January 22nd, 2025 and as usual, I am with our Chief Economist, Stéfane Marion. Hello Stéfane.

Hi Denis.

Well, we have a lot of noise on the market so far this year and as usual can we have a look at how the market performed so far?

It's a complicated world, Denis, and sometimes you have to look at what the market is saying. And at this juncture, many people might be surprised from the fact that, you know, equity markets are actually positive year to date. And maybe except for Japan and emerging Asia, which is, you know, down very slightly. It might surprise many people to say that despite all the political noise and the tariff threats, the markets saying, well, we're not sure that's the baseline scenario where the US president would come in very forcefully and put us in a situation where we have a global tariff war. So, so far, so good. Of course, it's early in the year, but it might surprise many people to see that the markets are important.

And because of what's going on today, the presentation will be a bit different. We need to talk about, you know, the trade balance, tariff and so on and so forth. But if we start with the trade balance.

I think we want to be very clear to like, we don't know what the full answer is right now. So maybe we'll find, you know, potential solutions for Canada to deal with this uncertainty that we face right now. Now what is clear that we know from Washington is the president is annoyed with the US trade balance, which is very much, it's significant trade deficit with the entire world, 3% of GDP. Denis, it's been a long time since the US actually saw a trade surplus.

And when you compare those tariffs from where they were many, many years ago, where do we sit?

It's very low and the president will say we are tariff structure is very low, but your deficit is very large. So either you want to bring that to surplus, then your tariff structure is going to have to be very high. So, what the president is talking about is going for a tariff structure that's roughly 2% right now to something that will be equivalent to something much more punitive sometimes that we see, you know, double digit tariffs that we saw 100 years ago. But keep in mind, Denis, that back then the import content of US consumption was much smaller. Nowadays for every dollar consumed in the US, about 12 cents comes from imports. So if you want to put 25% tariffs on 12% of consumption, well, you know what it means on inflation, 2 percentage point higher, that would bring inflation closer to 5%. I don't think that's palatable for the president and I'm not sure it's palatable for the bond market.

And if we just turn back a bit to performance and instead of the stock market going to the bond market, the bond market is reacting quite differently this time around. And it's probably because of all of the uncertainty that's in the air.

So, that's why I say, we can't say for sure what the scenario will be for the balance of the year. Clearly the stock market is saying, well, I don't see much chance in a big tariff structure or a very aggressive one. But the bond market is saying, well, I'm going to give you something you've never seen and that's a 10-year treasury yield that's–

Which one is right? The bond trader or the stock trader.

We will find out in the next few months. That's why we've been telling clients, well, be careful because there's no certainty in this type of world. But I think there is something to be said to that the president is not comfortable with the 10-year treasury yield moving higher by 100 basis point since the Fed started easing interest rates. Because that what it means, Denis, is that the mortgage rates are rising in the US. So a lot of people wanted to refinance their homes and say, well, the Fed is easing. I'm going to get a cheaper rate. But you're not getting a cheaper rate because the bond market for the first time in over a generation is saying “Hey, if you're too aggressive on tariffs, there's going to be more inflation and rates will go higher”. So I think this is what the president will be keeping an eye on. And this is why there's no certainty on how we can go with the 25% tariff without hitting the US economy negatively on long term rates.

Let's come back to the, you know, the commercial balance and can we explain how does it look Canada versus what Mr. Trump is saying?

So what I showed to the bond market and what's happening in equities saying, well, I don't think he can be overly aggressive without jeopardizing economic growth in the US. But from a Canadian perspective, clearly we need to find a better response to how we approach Americans. There's no, you know, having a free trade agreement is not a given, right, right. So we need to maintain good relationships with, with the US and US saying, well, I'm subsidizing you dramatically with trade on USMCA, to which I reply: listen it is true that the Americans have a slight, you know, trade deficit with us, but it's only $32 billion.

If you put things in perspective, the 32 billion versus the whole commercial deficit in the state, it's pretty small.

Well, let's put in a number. The Americans have one thousand billion dollars, so 1 trillion in terms of deficit, but with Canada 32 billion.

Its peanuts.

3% yeah, exactly not much. And of that 3%, Denis, it's all oil and gas because the Americans actually for since 2008 are actually running a surplus outside oil. So even in terms of the balance on motor vehicles, the Americans are running a surplus. Yeah. So again, this is where we need to be very good at explaining to Americans, listen, the deficit is really oil and gas.

And they want that.

They need it because without us they wouldn't have a surplus on energy exports because they can refine the crude oil that we sell them and sell it and transform gasoline, which–

And if I recall correctly, the one that because they want to have a fair sources of gas coming from Canada instead of other country that they're not that close.

We are a de facto strategic petroleum reserve for them. You're absolutely right. And the reason for that is because we now export. So the US imports 62% of the oil from Canada via pipeline, which is quite from a national security standpoint, which is quite attractive from their standpoint. So that's why, I mean, I'm not saying it won't happen for sure, but it would be, it is unlikely that the Americans would put a 25% tariff structure on oil and gas, which they need to main keep their inflation lower.

OK, let's get very clear. If they put a 25% everywhere, how does that affect the GDP?

No one wins. OK, but from a Canadian perspective, since you're asking, it would be quite ugly. It would be a GDP drawdown, or let's call it a recession, 6 percentage point, which would be the largest recession since the 1980s when interest rates were 20% in Canada. So the point, Denis, is this is the extreme case where there's a 25% tariff on everyone and there's retaliation. Obviously we're a small open economy. Even our energy would be taxed. Then we would have a problem. But again, Denis, that's not our baseline scenario. But you wanted me to give you the extreme case. This is the extreme case that we would contend with.

That's big.

It's big, but obviously the market is not pricing. But this is if you want the extreme scenario.

Those are numbers.

Bank of Canada numbers by the way, not mine.

OK, now we can shift a little bit to the industrial sector in Canada compared to the other countries where we're not at par.

Well, here's the challenge. The politicians are saying, OK, the Americans we need to diversify our export sources, but unless we want to sell them energy and it's very hard to do because our energy goes to us via pipelines. There's no real pipeline going east-west. So if we're gonna sell stuff–

We can’t put that in boxes.

Exactly. But what we can put in boxes are the widgets that are produced by our manufacturing sector. God knows we could do better there because what we've done over the past year is, we haven't been paying attention to our manufacturing sector. We were too obsessed and moving production elsewhere. Basically we were saying, oh, let's move or production elsewhere; will be less pollution in Canada. I get that it works, because manufacturing is very energy intensive, but if production moves elsewhere and forms of energy used to produce the manufacturing are more polluting in Canada, the planet doesn't win. Now I'm not happy that we now boast to have the smallest manufacturing sector in the G7 despite the fact that we have a comparative advantage on electricity prices and natural gas which are critical for the manufacturing production process.

That was one of your battles for the past year or so that we underinvested in our industries. We thought that everything can be digital nowadays. But you know, if trade is not so secured, whether southern partner, we need to have a critical base in manufacturing. There's a critical mass that we must keep in this country. And this is where I think that this is part of the solution. Let's say, well, OK, fine, the Americans don't want to. Let's, let's build a relationship where we sell within Canada on a higher proportion than what we're doing right now.

And last but not least, you want to bring us on another thinking about tariff, but tariff between provinces that are not really tariffs.

So what concerns me is that we're saying it's not fair that the Americans want to put a 25% tariff structure on us. But since you're asking, Denis, the tariff equivalent of the trade barriers that we have between us, between the provinces in this country is a whopping 21%. When you think about it–

Do people know that?

People are not paying attention. There is a way to take those into interprovincial barriers and put them in a terrific equivalent one, 21%.

You're telling me that we are as protective between us then the Americans wants between the Canada.

You know, Americans want to put 25%. We have 21% on ourselves. And that's not normal. And that's a way where I say, OK, maybe it's frustrating for producers not to have the visibility that they want to have with the Americans. But here's the thing, I can get rid of this almost overnight and say, hey, you know what, we can increase interprovincial trade that is only 40% of our production, maybe to back to 50% where it was before the free trade agreement. So, you know, it's all not doom and gloom. If you think about it, it's an opportunity that comes only once in a generation where all the Premiers sit down and you say enough with this, that's gone and we can actually provide visibility to our producers and keep a critical mass on manufacturing. So again, Denis, yes, it's annoying, yes there's lack of visibility, not sure what the market is pricing at this point in time, but not pricing the end of the world for sure. But from a Canadian perspective, this is probably the most important chart of the presentation. Please, let's get rid of this.

Well, on that Stefane, thank you very much. Thank you for that very special presentation. Hopefully it helped you. Hopefully it was constructive and we'll see you next month in February.

Hello everyone, Welcome to Economic Impact. Today is December 10th, 2024 and as usual I am with our Chief Economist, Stefane Marion. Stefane, once again stock market is going up.

Hi, good morning, Denis. It's been a great wealth effect for most households. We know that most portfolios are composed of equities new all-time high on the MSI all country index. So, yeah, it's striking how well the stock market is doing globally.

And is it worldwide or it's only North America phenomenon?

Well, you might not suspect this thing, but if I was to tell you who's what's the best stock market perform where? Where's the country, where the stock markets performing the best so far in Q4?

I saw the slide.

Yeah. OK.

So Canada we're up almost 8% quarter to date, outperforming the rest of the world. Year to date, we have a 24% gain exceeded only by the US at 28%. I can bet you that not many people thought Canada would follow the US as well as it has in 2024.

Stefane, are we catching up in Canada versus the US because our price earning ratio are lower?

Yeah, we spoke to that a few quarters ago saying that it was abnormal to see this discount on Canada versus US on the stock market perspective. So you're absolutely right that there's a catch up phase here. Half of the gains on the S&P TSX this year were accounted by P/E expansion. Yet Denis, despite this catch up, we're still trading at historical discount to the US. So if I was to qualify the Canadian stock market right now, I would not call it overvalued. It's fairly valued, not overvalued for the US it's probably a different connotation.

OK. And now if we go back to economy, the exportation, I think we need to talk about that.

Well, people thought that stock market would be under pressure this quarter because of the potential threats of tariff coming from the US. I know the president-elect spoke to 25%. 25% would be a massive deal on Canada, Denis. Because we have $600 billion of exports going to the US, that's 20% of GDP. So I mean, you know, putting these slapping 25% tariffs on that would seriously fragilized any economy and probably the stock market.

And we can talk about crude oil because people, I don't think they know how much exportation we're doing to the State.

So the reason the market is not buying into the 25% tariff structure is because they know full well that the president-elect has promised the Americans that they would get affordable energy going forward. So if you impose a 25% tariff on Canada, which accounts for 62% of US imports of crude oil, we are now shipping 4 million barrels a day to the US right now. You would certainly ignite inflationary pressures in the US. So that's why the, you know, the components of the Canadian stock market that's performing so well in Q4, aside from the IT sector is the energy sector because the market is saying no, no, no, there's no way Washington could put 25% of tariff without fragilized its own economy.

OK, Stefane, but there's something doesn't add up here, why the Canadian dollar is so low compared to the US dollar despite that.

Well, for some people it's a conundrum because the models are broken because normally you have an historical relationship between the Canadian dollar and the price of oil. We also include, you know, interest rate spreads on that one. So what is striking this time is that the Canadian dollar is so cheap... well, you know, 1.40$ more than 1.40$ versus U.S. dollar and oil is trading at $70.00. We've never seen this combination in the past whenever the Canadian dollar traded at current levels, oil was trading at no more than $30.00. So obviously it's a revenue boon for the energy producers, but from a purchasing power it's quite frustrating. So a lot of people are saying why is the relationship broken between oil prices and the exchange rate?

OK, but how are you explaining that? Is it because of the employment?

Interest rate spread. So economic performance, the relative economic performance in Canada vs US. We're not doing very well right now. The unemployment rate at 6.8% last month versus US at 4.2%. So the markets have jumped on this and they are now saying that we can justify the divergence in monetary policy between the two countries.

OK, what's your call on the next Bank of Canada rate cut or not?

Well, the market is calling 90% odds that they'll be cutting rates 50 points. Yeah, 50 basis points. So we gotta get closer to 3% as quickly as possible. Denis, I want to bring your attention to the fact that this gap in the unemployment rate is the widest we've seen since 2001, so over 20 years. So yes, you can justify this. And so the Canadian dollar is trading on rate differential between Canada and US as opposed to oil prices.

Well, it's the end of the year and now we need to look at 2025. How does it look?

More uncertainty Denis. So uncertainty can bring positive surprises, but also can be challenging for markets or the economy. The reality, if we look at economic policy uncertainty in US right now, it has surged. The president-elect is not yet sitting in the White House and there's a whole bunch of policies that been rolled out there. We know that there might be a tariff war between China and the US, not just Canada and Mexico. So we're reinventing the global supply chain. It's uncertain what it means to inflation and expectations down the road. The president wants to avoid inflation expectations to rise. But this is pretty acute in terms of policy uncertainty right now. And this is a fairly high level, even if you compare to 2016 when he was first elected.

Well, we've never seen. Outside COVID, you have to go back to 2012 where it was the debt crisis in Eurozone, US was downgraded back then also, don't forget that... And there was also the beginning of a war in Syria, which is reigniting again. So we'll see what happened.

Syria is back again.

Yeah. So that can bring more challenges for markets. So again, this is not everything is so calm looking into 2025.

And we had two really spectacular year in terms of performance.

Yeah. So the message is don't be greedy when we've had two exceptional years of market returns, doesn't matter which asset classes, 2024 is just as good as 2023. It's exceptional to see back-to-back years like that. So again, looking into 2025, there are still uncertainties. So just be comfortable with your current asset mix and whether it respects your investment horizon. If not, then just give you know the calls that need to be made. But again, I can't promise you a third year of exceptional returns given the uncertainty that we see out there.

Well, on that, Stefane, thank you very much. Thank you for all of you to participate and to listen to our monthly Economic Impact. On behalf of the technical team of Economic Impact, on behalf of Stefane and myself, we wish you a happy holidays and hopefully we'll see you back in 2025.