Canadian Personal Finance Blog

Personal Finances and Consumer Concerns, essays, stories, examples and how to articles with a distinctly Canadian Point of View

Archive for October 1st, 2008

Is it Over?

Wednesday, October 1st, 2008

The markets had a rally yesterday and many stocks had nice comebacks, but will it last? All of this hinges on some kind of remedy on the mess in the U.S., so only time will tell on this one.  Will it all come back to where we were before this mess? Most stocks will, but some may take a long time to come back (my guess anything to do with Financial Institutions in the states, or that had exposure to this mess).

No Trigger For Canadian Housing Bubble Burst

The CIBC is claiming their is no trigger to cause a housing price meltdown similar to the one in the U.S., since we don’t have sub-prime loans and we only have a small percentage of non-conforming mortgages. Good to hear someone say that, but wasn’t the CIBC one of the Canadian banks most affected (effected?) by this whole mess in the U.S.? 

GDP Up in July

The Canadian GDP was up 0.7% in July which is good and is larger than the increases of only 0.1% in May and July. This information while useful also precurses the current financial mess that we are in, but it is still heartening to think that the Canadian Economy for now is doing ok.

 

GDP for July 2008

GDP for July 2008

Another Surplus for 2008

Jim Flaherty announced that this year Canada will have a budget surplus of almost $3B. That news can only help the Conservatives during the election, and just makes me wonder what will be done with that extra money? My hope is more National Debt pay down, which will help our kids as much as any Green Tax might (IMHO).

 

Fraud Remedied

TD has repaid me the money that was defrauded from my account, using a duplicate made of my wife’s access card (I am a Victim of Debit Card Fraud). All of it was paid back, which was good, but it did take a while, so I owe some money on my secured line of credit as well. TD phoned to say that the case had been referred to the police and would not comment any further. The next time I am in Montreal I will look for Bar Le Bievre which was where the withdrawals came from, just for my own curiousity.

More on this topic (What's this?)
How to Miss the Housing Crash
Toronto house prices in free fall
Read more on U.S. Housing Market, Financial Services at Wikinvest
www.financialwebring.com