National flags of the United States, Canada, and Mexico fly in the breeze in New Orleans on April 21, 2008. THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP/Judi Bottoni
May 20, 2018 - 7:00 AM
TORONTO - Five things to watch for in the Canadian business world in the coming week:
What's next for NAFTA?
Negotiators for Canada, Mexico and the U.S. are under the gun to make headway on a new NAFTA deal after passing the unofficial deadline of May 17, put in place to give Congress enough time to vote on it by the end of the year. Canadian officials say a deal is "close" but issues such as auto-sector content rules and a U.S.-proposed five-year sunset clause remain sticking points.
Wholesale trade
Statistics Canada releases the wholesale trade figures for March on Tuesday. The agency said wholesale sales fell 0.8 per cent to $62.8 billion in February, the largest downward move and the second monthly drop since September 2017.
Bank earnings kickoff
CIBC will report second-quarter results on Wednesday, the first of the big banks to do so. The bank recently raised its posted five-year fixed-rate mortgage rate by 15 basis points, from 4.99 per cent to 5.14 per cent. The move followed similar announcements from Royal Bank and TD Bank, and are a result of rising bond yields.
Royal update
Royal Bank releases second-quarter results on Thursday. RBC CEO David McKay recently said that large tech companies pose a threat to banks, as their command of data allows them to not only deduce what customers' needs are and direct them to preferred financial institutions, but also get into banking themselves.
Latest from TD
TD Bank reports its second-quarter results on Thursday. The bank recently followed Bank of Montreal by lowering its five-year variable closed rate to 2.45 per cent until the end of May. The moves come amid slowing mortgage growth and falling home sales, which hit a five-year low in April.
News from © The Canadian Press, 2018