One of the big FX moves in the fourth quarter was in USD/CAD as Canadian and American fortunes diverged. The Bank of Canada cut big again in December and the market is 50/50 for a cut in January even as the Fed moves to the sidelines.
Today is an important data point with retail sales due at the bottom of the hour.
RBC is out with its latest spending tracker and the indications aren't great.
Our RBC credit cardholder data suggests Canadians pared back on discretionary goods (including home-related goods and electronics) and discretionary services (like health and fitness and home services) after a stronger month of spending in October. Restaurant sales were the outlier—holding up through November.
Their measure of discretionary goods spending fell 0.9% while discretionary services rose 0.2% m/m.
The drop comes after a better start in Q4 that leaves it on track to be a solid quarter but the momentum isn't great.
"Holiday spending was slightly below (-1.1%) 2023 levels over the Black Friday weekend (from the eve of Black Friday through Cyber Monday). Overall, holiday spending was 2% below a year ago in November"
The caveat here is that Canada started a two-month GST (Canada's VAT) holiday on December 14 so some spending may have been pushed back. Canadians were also dealing with a postal strike in November and early December.
