Five Canadian business stories to watch this week

housing starts
housing starts

Let’s talk stress

The Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions’ assistant superintendent Carolyn Rogers will speak to The Economic Club of Canada on Tuesday about the regulator’s mortgage stress test. Stress tests were introduced in 2018 to cool real estate markets such as Toronto and Vancouver, and have limited the ability of some to qualify for mortgages.

BoC speech

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Bank of Canada deputy governor Timothy Lane will speak before the Peterson Institute of International Economics on Wednesday. The topic of his speech will be “The Canadian Approach to Foreign Reserve Management.”

BCE earnings

BCE Inc. will release fourth-quarter results, hold a conference call and provide its 2019 estimates on Thursday. BCE subsidiary Bell Canada began asking its customers in December for permission to track everything they do with their home and mobile devices in return for advertising and promotions that are more “tailored” to their needs and preferences.

Housing starts

Canada Mortgage Housing Corp. releases housing starts for January on Friday. The national housing agency reported that seasonally adjusted annual rate of housing starts in Canada was 213,419 units in December, down from 224,349 in November but higher than analysts expectations of 205,000.

Unemployment update

Statistics Canada will release its labour force survey for January on Friday. The survey for December revealed that the unemployment rate stayed at its 43-year low of 5.6 per cent last month as the economy closed out 2018 with the addition of 9,300 net new jobs.

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