COST Financial News

The average long-term U.S. mortgage rate rose to its highest level in five weeks, a setback for prospective homebuyers during what’s traditionally the busiest time of the year for home sales

By Mary-Jane Bennett

Alberta-based Jennifer* is 47, divorced, has two adult children and recently lost her job. A successful professional, she was well on her way to an early retirement at age 52 or 53, but now she’s wondering if that will still be possible, and how much she’ll have to scale back her original plans.

From its very first earnings calls after going public in 2021, Lion Electric Co. has boasted that big-name companies, such as Amazon.com Inc., Ikea Systems BV, Canadian National Railway Co. and others, wanted its zero-emission electric trucks.

Tucked away in the depths of last year’s federal budget, the federal government outlined bold plans to crack down on payday lenders — but instead, they’ve gone after Canada’s non-prime lenders.

The April 1st implementation of another hike in the federal government’s carbon tax and the growing prospect that a Poilievre government will abolish the tax, have prompted its advocates to mount a last-gasp defence. Three hundred supporters (not all of them economists) have signed a petition in favour of it. Its backers also fanned out to argue for it in op-eds and numerous appearances on CBC, which willingly provided a soap box for one side of this partisan issue. But, far from being persuasive, advocates mostly demonstrated how little they have learned from their long-standing failure to sell the tax to many politicians and most Canadians.

As automakers continue to delay their electric-vehicle plans and report lower-than-expected sales, Canada’s goal of ensuring that at least 20 per cent of new vehicles sold by 2026 are electric seems to be in jeopardy.

The bank's Governing Council said the incoming data has confirmed its previous assessment of the medium-term inflation outlook, as the annual rate has continued to fall led by lower food and goods price inflation. Most measures of underlying inflation are easing, the ECB added, with wage growth gradually moderating and rises in labour costs are being absorbed in profits. Yet, it noted domestic price pressures remain «strong and are keeping services price inflation high». The council also addressed the issue of when rate cuts will begin, arguing it will require further increase in its ...

MUMBAI : Non-bank lenders are struggling through a spike in borrowing costs as banks have become cautious in lending to them following a regulatory warning, forcing these companies to diversify their money sources. Large deposit-taking non-banking finance companies such as Bajaj Finance and Shriram Finance Ltd, for instance, hiked their fixed deposit rates sharply this month, hoping to shore up funds that can make up for lower bank borrowings. Non-bank lenders that depend on banks for a significant portion of their borrowings are now turning to other more expensive options for funds, including deposits and bonds.

Mercedes-Benz is unfazed by the likelihood of Tesla entering India with imported electric cars at much lower duty and believes that the country's new EV policy has safeguards for existing players, a senior company official said on Thursday. While the entry of the likes of Tesla and VinFast will help expand the market and accelerate EV adoption in India, Mercedes-Benz is confident to maintain leadership in the luxury EV space as the new entrants would play in the lower segment. «I think new competitions and new players are always welcome. It helps to expand the market, spread more awareness, which is also the need of the hour to get more EV penetration,» Mercedes-Benz India Managing Director & CEO Santosh Iyer told PTI. He was responding to a query on the implications of India's new EV policy and if it puts manufacturers which have already invested in the country at a disadvantage.

Former White House chief economist Joe LaVorgna and JP Morgan's Kelsey Berro discuss whether strong consumer spending is a concern for the Fed on 'Making Money.'

New Delhi: Rising prices of raw materials for manufacturing plastic products could further burden the Indian economy lead to a hike in the prices of plastic goods in the near future, said Sribash Dasmohapatra, executive director of the Plastic Export Promotion Council (PLEXCONCIL), a body under the ministry of commerce. Raw materials used for manufacturing plastics, such as ethylene and propylene, are primarily sourced from countries with abundant petrochemical resources like Russia, Iran, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.

ventured into lithium-ion battery making, crucial for EVs, by beginning the construction of a facility equipped with technology from China-based manufacturer SVOLT. The facility would have a capacity of 6 GWhr in the initial phase, entailing an investment of ₹4,500 crore to ₹5,000 crore. Of this, it has invested over ₹1,800 crore by December.

Inflation is falling but buying food can still be expensive. Grocery prices surged 21% in the last three years, surpassing the overall 18% pace of inflation during that same time period, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

gold slid on Wednesday across the board hotter than expected US CPI inflation report that showed that both headline and core CPI climbed more than forecast. Spot gold closed with a loss of 0.80% at $2334. The Core CPI rose 0.40% for the third straight month Vs the forecast of 0.30%. The headline CPI accelerated 3.50% on a y-o-y basis as the core was noted at 3.80%; both the readings exceeded their respective estimates of 3.4% and 3.70%. Housing and gasoline costs accounted for more than half of the increase in the overall CPI as shelter prices remained sticky as rent and owners' equivalent rent were both up 0.40%. The Supercore services gauge, which excludes housing, recorded a 0.65% monthly gain. Car insurance and medicare costs rose once again. The three-month annualized rate has now risen to 4.60% from under 4% in February. June rate cut hopes have all but vanished as markets now look for only two rate cuts. The US Dollar Index and the US yields surged on the CPI report pressurising commodities as risk appetite was hit.

NEW DELHI : For a long time, Hollywood ruled India's IMAX and 3D screens, offering immersive viewing of movies rich in action and special effects. Now, local fare is gracing these premium formats, bringing differentiation for the movie-makers and new experiences for the movie lover. Local titles like Animal, Maidaanand Bade Miyan Chote Miyan have released in IMAX screens over the past few weeks, also benefiting the owners of these formats who only have a limited number of Hollywood films to screen every year.

After Chabahar, India is reportedly on course to gain the rights to operate a second overseas port, Sittwe, located in the Rakhine state of Myanmar. There is though no official corroboration yet. Ports in the Indian Ocean have become hot property as China on one side and the India-US combine on the other race to invest in them.

yen is at three-decade lows and under enough pressure to prompt strong official warnings of intervention to prop it up. The yen has fallen despite Japan's first interest rate hike since 2007 and optimism about the economy. It traded at 153.24 per dollar on April 10, its weakest since 1990 and in real terms it is at its weakest since at least the 1970s.

Cocoa gained in New York, with prices heading back toward a record high amid lingering fears about global shortages. Futures climbed as much as 4% to head for a fourth straight increase. Prices have surged this year — recently exceeding $10,000 a ton — as poor West African harvests put the world on course for another annual deficit, threatening to further raise chocolate prices. “West African near-term supply remains very tight at the start of the mid-crop harvest, and that has provided underlying support to the cocoa market,” the Hightower Report said.

Swarup Mohanty, Vice Chairman & CEO, Mirae Asset Global Investments, says “every fund manager will ask you to buy a good company at a good price. You have to decide how much of your portfolio is invested in good companies and the good companies are invariably the larger companies which have more from a balance sheet stability perspective. So, if you have bought more of the smaller companies, it is time to rebalance and that would be the right way of going ahead.” Good to see that despite the kind of volatility that we have seen in the stock markets, the SIP data continues unabated. What is your own expectation of what the next realistic target should be for the SIP figures on a monthly basis? Swarup Mohanty: It has become the go-to way of investing broadly for Indians. It is such a wonderful process of investing. It does allow investors to catch volatility like this and then over a period of time, the rupee cost averaging does set in. So, the process of investing through SIP is always the disciplined way and hence I think more and more Indians are catching on to it, 19,200 per month as we speak. My figure for December 2024 is 25,000. I do not see any stoppage of this at all. So, yes, I mean, great to be at the receiving end of the SIP flows.

Gold prices were little changed on Thursday, as the U.S. dollar and Treasury yields firmed after hotter-than-expected inflation data tempered hopes for an early interest rate cut.