09 Oct Weekly market update September 30, 2019
What happened last week?
Political turmoil swirled in many countries important to domestic investors, including Canada.
The Federal election campaign continued in earnest with the leaders continuing to share their messages and plans. It appears that each party has different ways of spending our tax dollars, even the ones that haven’t been collected. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-deficit-plans-take-backseat-as-federal-parties-seek-to-spend-more/
Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House of Representatives in the U.S. Congress, has launched an impeachment inquiry after President Trump used the withholding of aid money destined for the Ukraine to encourage an investigation of the Democrats’ front-runner, Joe Biden.
The political pressure that is about to be applied to the American president will not affect corporate performance in the short term but could cause changes to the legislative agenda. NAFTA’s replacement, the US-Mexico-Canada tripartite agreement is scheduled for discussion in Congress and could be delayed or discouraged.
Boris Johnson, U.K. Prime Minister, had his action to pirogue Parliament nullified by their Supreme Court forcing MPs back to Westminster and back to bargaining over the terms of Brexit as the deadline of October 31st approaches.
High-level trade talks between the U.S. and China are scheduled for early October with the Chinese Vice-Premier visiting Washington, D.C.
What’s ahead for this week? In Canada, a balanced week of economic indicator releases is planned with July’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and industrial products and raw materials price indices and international merchandise trade for August on the calendar.
In the U.S., August data for the trade balance, construction spending, factory, and durable goods orders, and the employment reports for September are all planned for release.