Press conference from Bank of Canada Governor Poloz:
- There's 'no doubt' we've had a mild contraction
- Economic developments 'quite disappointing'
- Canadian economy has been below capacity for some time
- Canadian economy less likely to be in synch with US than in past
- Canadian economy had a mild contraction in H1
- There's 'no doubt' we've had a mild contraction
- Won't get into debate about Canadian recession
- The facts have changed quite quickly in the last 2-3 months
- One of the big changes is the downgrade of investment intentions in the oil change
- Oil investment will fall 40% this year vs 30% estimate prior
- BOC thought oil prices would rebound
- Quite surprised that after weather improved non-energy exports failed to improve
- BOC still has many tools it could use; our expectation is that using them will be unnecessary
- If we're disappointed, we have other tools in the toolkit
- Forward guidance is in the toolkit, it would normally be the next kind of tool the BOC could use
- Quantitative easing is among the BOC's tools
- Wouldn't describe Wednesday's decision as 'close'
Watch the press conference and Q&A here.
The most important part of the press conference so far is him saying that they don't expect to cut more.