Canadian Personal Finance Blog

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

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.

Our friends at Stats Canada published their Leading Indicators for August 2008 yesterday and things in the Canadian economy seem to be doing ok, not great, but not as bad as some might think. 

The most interesting statement made was:

Household demand has remained the most consistent source of growth in recent months. Sales of furniture and appliances grew steadily, helped by a steady housing market. Housing starts rebounded in August. Meanwhile, personal services have become the main prop to growth in services employment. Sales of other durable goods were an exception to the strength in household spending, reflecting slower auto sales over the summer in response to record gasoline prices.

The housing index dropped, which may mean more reasonable housing prices or a slowing of the price increases we have seen, which is good as well.

Speaking of House Prices

The Citizen talks about how new price valuations for homes across Ontario are about to be sent out by The Municipal Property Assessment Corporation. Remember these valuations have been frozen for the past two years, so these new numbers could be pretty darn crazy (given a 20% price increase since 2005 on average in Ontario). 

“Residential property values have increased by an average of approximately 20 per cent across Ontario since 2005, when the last assessment update was done. Because of the four-year phase-in, property taxpayers will see an average assessment increase of five per cent next year,” Carl Isenburg, president and chief administrative officer of the Municipal Property Assessment Corporation (MPAC)…

 
I look forward to seeing this envelope in the mail.

Quick Run Around the Blogs

Some excellent articles this week from other bloggers worth having a look at:

• Nancy Zimmerman writes about 10 tips to change a small money habit, where she discusses how to stop buying lunch out (micro economics at it’s best). 
• Michael James writes about the Current Financial Mess and gives a very philosophical view that we are still living good lives, we just need to figure that one out. 
• All About Nortel has an excellent article questioning the former Telecom Diva’s decision to Sell Off Their Metro Ethernet product. Good research.
• The Canadian Capitalist writes about the implications of the Fall of AIG, a little depressing, but good research as well. 
• No Debt Plan writes an interesting view on Credit Card Victims Don’t Pay for 100% of My Credit Card rewards. 

Consumer Price Index at 3.4% for July

All I can say is “Uh Oh”, with the CPI numbers for July
being released by Stats Canada.

July saw the highest 12-month increase since March 2003. A climb in gasoline prices was the primary source of higher consumer prices in July. The 12-month variation in the Consumer Price Index (CPI) and the gasoline price index have been increasing at a faster pace over the past four months.

Inflation without gas prices included in it, is at 2.1%, which isn’t as bad, but it is still startling to see these numbers jumping up like this.

On Going Consumer Price Index Graph

This means other prices are going up but not as dramatically, but this is very worrying and I wonder what the Bank of Canada may do about this? Gas prices seem to have plateau’ed for now, but what is going to happen this fall?

More information after the BIG table

Leading Indicators Remain Flat

The composite leading indicators remained unchanged for another month, for July. This is the second straight month this is happening, but the actual results are quite mixed. The Housing Index seems to be the biggest drop and is the heaviest anchor keeping the index from rising (which is a good thing, I think), and New Orders in manufacturing is up too (i.e. people or companies are buying more).

Humor: And You Can’t Even Rely On Teenage Sex Either!

Yup Stats Canada put out a study that says that Teenage sex in Canada is on the Decline.

In 2005, 43% of teens aged 15 to 19 reported that they had had sexual intercourse at least once, down from 47% in 1996/1997.

The decline was due to young women, among whom the proportion who reported having had sexual intercourse fell from 51% to 43%. The proportion of young men who had had intercourse remained unchanged at 43%.

After doing the simple math in my house, I am going to go ground 2 of my three daughters!!!

Unemployment Rate for July Down

Why is it I always seem to go opposite to the going trends? On Friday our friends at Stats Canada came out with a new employment figures for the month of July.

Well, the figures may not take into consideration my actual “down sizing”, but it is a bit confusing to find out that even though Employment dropped, Unemployment also dropped, with the following “interesting” explanation from Stats Canada.

Following gains at the beginning of 2008, and little change from April to June, employment dropped by 55,000 in July. The unemployment rate edged down 0.1 percentage points to 6.1%, as many people, particularly youth, left the labour force….

Most of the employment losses in July were in part time, down 48,000. Over the last 12 months, however, part-time employment has grown by 3.5%, much faster than the 0.9% growth in full time.

So part time jobs are starting to dry up? Not sure if that is good or bad, but with unemployment dropping, what does that really mean? Hopefully the number of jobs is not dropping (speaking as a person looking for a job).

Canadian Unemployment Figures for July 2008

If You Don’t Write it Down?

One of the ways I cope with stress is to start writing lists down of things that I must do (specifically at least a Financial List), so I don’t forget important things (another thing I do under stress (forget that is)). I believe it was a Tom Clancy novel that had the quote, “If you don’t write it down, how do you know it happened?”, which I can extrapolate to, if I don’t write it down, how do I know it will happen?

I will now have multiple lists to complete or deal with in terms of things that must be done by the end of August, and September, and after that.

End of August Financial List should include:

• Creating a lock in retirement account of some sort for pension transferals.
• Investigate CCRA rules about pension transferals, because, I am going to get badly dinged if things go as they are described in my severance package. This may mean, talking to an accountant.
• Open personal RRSP account for all of the various pieces of my severance and savings packages that should be transferred away from my current carrier.
• Fix my resume because my resume sucks. OK this isn’t financial, but it is important, and needs to be done this week, not by the end of the month!!!
• etc., etc., etc.,

As you can see this barely scratches the surface of financial tasks that I must take care of, and in fact I have a myriad of other non-financial tasks that I must tackle in short order as well. The problem I have is I also procrastinate in these situations, which does not help either.

The positive side of this is, I need to go into my bank, and I believe with a list of the assets I am about to transfer to them, I may be able to convince them, they might want to give me Free Banking again! Let’s hope.

Carnivals This Week

• Credit Card Lowdown hosted the Carnival of Money, Growth and Happiness where they added my post about University Costs .