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Weekly Update for the week ending July 4, 2025

When Good News Is Bad News (and Vice Versa)

This week brought a steady stream of US labour market data, and you might’ve noticed something that feels a little backwards: sometimes good news about jobs or the economy makes stocks fall, while disappointing news sends markets higher. At first, this can be hard to wrap your head around. After all, if more people are working and businesses are hiring, that should be a positive sign, right? But markets don’t just react to the data itself – they react to what that data means for interest rates and the US Federal Reserve’s (Fed) next move.

Weekly Update for the week ending May 16, 2025

Sell in May or Stay and Invest?
I originally intended to talk about this lighter topic – an old investing phrase that tends to pop up around this time of year: “Sell in May and go away” the previous week, but Warren Buffet stepping down from Chief Executive Officer of Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK.B) after 60 years at the helm kind of stole the lead. So this week, let’s talk a look at the story behind this phrase.

Weekly Update for the week ending April 11, 2025

The sell-off at the start of the week wiped out the past 12 months of gains, with stocks edging closer to bear market territory. Since the previous Thursday, US markets saw their steepest three-day decline since 1987 – and before that, not since World War II. Meanwhile, Canada’s TSX Composite Index (TSX) experienced its sharpest drop since the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. This time, though, the damage was self-inflicted—and, frankly, far from fun. ☹

Weekly Update for the week ending April 4, 2025

For the past few weeks, I’ve been talking about tariffs – what they are, how they affect consumers, and how they affect the Canadian dollar. But tariffs rarely happen in isolation. When one country imposes them, the other often fires back with its own set of retaliatory tariffs. With this week’s announcement of sweeping US tariffs on imports from almost all trading partners, it’s the perfect time to discuss the next round of the trade war: counter tariffs.

Weekly Update for the week ending March 28, 2025

Economists and analysts have been bringing up the word ‘stagflation’ lately – and that’s not a good thing. It’s an economic scenario no one wants, where growth stalls while prices keep rising. The term might sound complicated but understanding it now can help you avoid surprises later. So this week, I thought I’d go over what stagflation is and explain it in a way that’s easy to understand.

What is Stagflation?

Imagine you’re driving in bumper-to-bumper traffic – moving painfully slow – but at the same time, your car’s engine is overheating. That’s basically stagflation in economic terms: the economy isn’t growing much (or at all), but prices keep rising. Normally, inflation happens when the economy is booming, and a slowdown helps cool things down. But stagflation flips the script, combining slow growth with rising costs – something that can leave consumers squeezed and businesses struggling.

Weekly Update for the week ending March 21, 2025

How Tariff Wars Are Impacting the Canadian Dollar—And What It Means for Us

With all the talk about tariffs and their effect on the Canadian and US economies, I started wondering – what do these trade battles mean for the already weak Canadian dollar? My first thought? It can’t be good. But that made me realize I wasn’t entirely sure how tariffs influence our currency or what that means for us as consumers, businesses, and investors. As Daenerys Targaryen would say, “Let’s begin!”