Market Recap: U.S. and Canada

It was a superb week across the board this week, with all four major indices finishing solidly in positive territory. The chart shows a clear directional move early in the week that set the tone, and things pretty much just kept grinding for the rest of the week. Tech led the way throughout, holding its advantage over the other indices from open to close.

As for the numbers, the Nasdaq 100 was the week's clear winner at +6.20%, followed by the S&P 500 at +4.54%. The Dow Jones posted a solid +3.19%, while the TSX lagged the US indices but still finished the week up +1.93%.

Major Economic Stories This Week

Energy Lifts Producer Prices, But The Core Story Is More Subdued

US producer prices rose 0.5% in March, a headline that looks worse than the underlying data suggests.

We’ve reached the point where the Iran conflict is now fully showing up in supply chain costs. Energy prices jumped 8.5% in March, and that pulled goods prices up 1.6%, the strongest monthly gain since August 2023. It also lifted the annual PPI rate to 4.0%, the highest in three years. Strip out the energy story and the picture looks a lot calmer. Services prices were flat after a 0.3% gain in February, and the core index, which excludes food, energy, and trade services, rose just 0.2% for the month, a step down from the 0.5% gains recorded in both January and February. The headline miss against the 1.1% consensus adds important context to a number that looked alarming at first glance.

•  Annual PPI of 4.0% marks the highest reading since February 2023, but the consensus had pencilled in 4.6%, making this a notable miss

• Food prices: -0.3% for the month, a partial offset to energy that didn't make many headlines

• Transportation and warehousing: +1.3% within services, the one services subcategory adding meaningful upward pressure

• Core PPI monthly gain of 0.2% is the slowest since October 2024, the deceleration trend in underlying producer prices is real

Canada's Housing Starts Edge Higher, But The Regional Divide Is Wide

National starts rose 4.5% in February, but Vancouver and Toronto are telling two very different stories.

When we look at Canada’s national housing starts number, it looks like we’re seeing decent progress, but a closer look at the city-level breakdown tells a more complicated story. Vancouver posted a 60% jump in actual starts, led by strength in both multi-unit and single-detached construction. But, Toronto moved sharply in the other direction, with both categories pulling lower. That divergence matters for how you interpret the national trend.

The year-over-year gain of 10% in urban centres above 10,000 population is nice to see, but it's being carried by a small number of markets while others continue to soften. New supply isn't flowing to where demand is concentrating, and that mismatch has real implications for affordability in the cities where it's needed most.

• Rural starts: estimated at 20,400 SAAR, a segment that rarely moves the national needle but adds context to the urban-rural split

• The 250,900 SAAR print sits 9% below the government's stated target pace needed to address Canada's housing shortfall

• Multi-unit construction continues to dominate the national mix, single-detached activity remains well below pre-2022 norms

• Toronto's 28% decline represents the steepest monthly drop among major centres, the condo overhang remains the primary drag.

US Existing Home Sales Fall To A Nine-Month Low

Sales dropped 3.6% in March to their weakest pace in nine months, as affordability and confidence keep buyers on the sidelines.

The US housing market is stuck. Buyers aren't moving, sellers aren't discounting, and inventory, although it is inching higher, is still well below historical norms at 4.1 months of supply. With limited homes available, the median sale price held at $408,800, the highest for any March on record and up 1.4% from a year ago. Lower consumer confidence and softer job growth are the primary drags keeping buyers on the sidelines, and neither is showing signs of resolving quickly. What you end up with is a low-volume, high-price market, the type that keeps affordability out of reach for first-time buyers while existing homeowners continue to accumulate equity.

•  A balanced market typically requires 5–6 months of supply, at 4.1 months, sellers retain meaningful pricing power

• March sales came in below the same month last year, the market has not recovered on an annual basis

• First-time buyers represented just 32% of March purchases, historically this figure runs closer to 40%

• The $408,800 median price reflects a market where price discovery is effectively frozen by supply constraints, not strengthening demand

TOP INSIGHTS

Energy Is Running The Inflation Narrative Again

What this week's PPI data confirms, and last week's CPI reinforced, is that energy is once again the dominant force in headline inflation. The difference this cycle is that the driver is geopolitical rather than demand-side. The Iran conflict is feeding into energy costs, and those costs are working through the supply chain faster than most other inputs. That's an important distinction for central banks which have to separate temporary distortion from structural trend.

For households, energy moves first and everything else follows. Gas prices hit the pump, transportation gets more expensive, and food distribution costs rise, usually within weeks. Core inflation might look under control in the official data, but people experience the headline number when they fill up or buy groceries, not the adjusted one. The reality gap between what central banks monitor and what consumers live tends to erode confidence faster than the underlying data reflects, and right now that gap is wide.

My thoughts are that if the Iran situation stabilizes, the current energy spike will end up being a one-month distortion, but not a total trend reversal. But the Fed, which matters far more that what I think, can't act on a scenario that hasn't materialised yet. Until we see energy prices confirm a pullback in the data, every print like this gives policymakers more cover to hold rates steady. Cuts before summer look less likely with each passing week.

The US Housing Market Is Frozen, And That Isn't A Neutral State

Low sales volume and high prices. Sounds pretty stable, right? But in actuality there's nothing balanced about what's happening in the US housing market right now. Transaction volume just hit a nine-month low, affordability remains deeply stretched, and the inventory available isn't growing fast enough to change the calculus for buyers who've been waiting for conditions to improve.

What makes this unusual is that prices aren't adjusting downward. When demand falls, prices typically follow, but the constrained supply is blocking that correction from happening. First-time buyers are locked out, for all intents and purposes and ‘move-up’ buyers are sitting tight, so the result is a market where declining volume and rising prices coexist. That's compression, not an equilibrium, and compressed markets tend to move sharply when the pressure eventually releases.

The variable to keep an eye on is mortgage rate direction. If we see even a modest decline, it could unlock all that pent-up demand. The buyers are there, but they're just waiting for the math to work. If rates stay elevated through summer, (a distinct possibility) transaction volume will deteriorate further, and the ripple effects are broader than most people consider: real estate services, home improvement retail, furniture, appliances, moving. We saw that in last week’s Durable Goods report. A frozen housing market is a drag on more of the broader economy than the sector data alone suggests.

Canada's Housing Supply Is Going To The Wrong Places

The 60% surge in Vancouver starts and the 28% decline in Toronto point to a supply response that's following local market signals, which sounds sensible until you remember that Toronto remains one of Canada's most supply-constrained and expensive markets. Building is accelerating where prices have already run hard, and pulling back where the affordability problem is most acute. That’s a lag that deepens the problem over time.

This connects directly to the Royal LePage data, which I write about below, where mid-sized markets are seeing double-digit price gains precisely because supply hasn't kept pace with buyers relocating there. The national housing start figure looks reasonable in isolation, but more and more, the distribution of that supply is misaligned with where demand is concentrating. It might be driven by interprovincial migration, remote work, or affordability-driven relocation, but whatever the cause, Canadians are moving and construction isn't following in the right places.

What I'll be watching is whether federal housing policy measures begin to redirect development activity, or whether it simply adds demand stimulus on top of a misdirected supply response. The Q2 data should give us an early read.

TOP STORY
Live Nation Loses Landmark Antitrust Trial

• Federal jury ruled company illegally monopolized the live events industry

• Six-week Manhattan trial included testimony from music industry figures

• CEO Michael Rapino testified during the proceedings

• A judge will now determine what remedy, if any, follows the ruling

Writing about this news left me feeling a bit out of my league, because it’s a rare occasion that we buy online tickets. That said, I’m obviously aware of the controversy surrounding the current state of ticket sales, and as I wrote about last week, it was up to a jury to decide whether Live Nation’s business practices were legal. Well, the jury has now spoken. The six-week trial drew testimony from prominent figures across the music industry, including the company's chief executive. The verdict was unambiguous: Live Nation illegally monopolized the live events industry and overcharged fans for tickets. What happens next now rests with the judge.

What The Verdict Means

The jury decision of an illegal monopolization is significant, but it doesn't determine the outcome on its own. The judge still has broad discretion in determining the remedy, and options range from behavioural restrictions to a full structural breakup of the company. The government will push for something aggressive; the company will argue for the most limited intervention possible. For fans, venues, artists, and anyone operating in the live events ecosystem, the range of possible outcomes remains wide.

What To Watch Next

Major structural breakups in antitrust law are rare and legally complex, and this process will take time. The industry will operate in a state of legal uncertainty for some time to come, which may affect venue contracts, artist deals, and ticketing arrangements. The deeper question, whether any remedy actually lowers ticket prices for consumers, is one the data will have to answer.

 Full story here.

A federal jury just ruled that Live Nation illegally monopolized the live events industry, but the question of who's actually responsible for sky-high ticket prices is more contested than the verdict suggests. The platform, the artists, the venues, and the buyers have all played a role in getting us here.

Please vote on this week's question:

LAST WEEK’S POLL RESULTS

In last week's poll, I asked what record-low consumer sentiment signals to you. A clear majority, 61%,said a recession is coming, while 21% saw volatility but not a recession, and 18% viewed it as a buying opportunity. Thanks to everyone who voted.

TOP COMMENTS

Recession is Coming

“While it's not necessarily due to the record-low consumer sentiment, I started saying I think a recession is likely within 12-24 months for over a year now, so I guess I'm on the clock...
I do think buying opportunities exist in equities, I just don't think they're the ones most investors are focused on. It doesn't always have to be growth-growth-growth, sometimes short-mid term capital preservation is good enough for the win. Live to fight another day...” - callawayguy

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CANADA HOUSING
Canada's Real Estate Story Is Now Two Stories

• National average home price fell 2% compared to last year

• Quebec City prices surged over 10% in the first quarter

• Toronto and Vancouver each declined roughly 4.5% or more annually

• First-time buyers remain on the sidelines as uncertainty persists

The Canadian housing market is fracturing along regional lines, and Royal LePage's first-quarter data makes that split official. Mid-sized markets like Quebec City are running hot, prices up more than 10% year-over-year, while the country's two largest cities are moving in in opposite directions, each posting declines of roughly 4.5% or more from a year ago. The national average price of $812,900 tells you almost nothing useful about either story.

Why Big Cities Are Struggling

Toronto's problems are concentrated in the condo segment. Sharp reductions in temporary foreign workers and international students over recent years cut off a major pool of buyers, and that’s left the market oversupplied in the unit type developers had built most aggressively. Royal LePage CEO Philip Soper says a policy change in the next few years could shift the demand picture quickly, but for now, the buyers just aren't there. Detached and semi-detached homes are showing a bit of a recovery, but condo inventory continues to drag down the overall numbers.

Why Mid-Sized Markets Are Winning

In resource-based cities like Sudbury, rising wages from industrial activity are translating directly into stronger local purchasing power, and supply hasn't kept pace. Buyer behaviour has also shifted nationally, and Soper notes that people are now selling their home before shopping for the next one, flipping a two-decade norm driven by supply scarcity. First-time buyers are still the most cautious group, with many renting rather than buying, but even that calculation is getting harder: high rents are pushing some renters toward ownership regardless.

 Read the full story here.

CANADA/U.S. RELATIONS
A Data-Driven Look At Trump's Anti-Canada Turn

• Trump mentioned Canada up to 85 times in a single month in 2025

• He has threatened tariffs on Canada more than 200 times since January 2025

• The effective tariff rate on Canadian goods has never exceeded 5%

• Unfavourable Canadian views of the US have risen from 41% to 74%

There's a massive gap between what Donald Trump says about Canada and what he actually does, and I enjoyed reading a detailed analysis of his speeches and social media posts that quantify that that gap. Since returning to office, Trump's references to Canada have been overwhelmingly negative, his threats have been relentless, and his tone has reached lows not seen in any previous administration. The data also shows that Canadians have noticed, and responded.

The Numbers Behind The Noise

Using sentiment analysis applied to transcripts of Trump's public appearances and Truth Social posts, researchers tracked his attitude toward Canada over time. The findings are striking. He mentioned Canada up to 85 times in a single month. He's threatened tariffs more than 200 times since January 2025 and threatened annexation, referring to Canada as the "51st state" or calling its border "imaginary", 69 times, roughly more than once a week. The sentiment index hit a new low in February when he threatened to block the opening of the Gordie Howe Bridge. And yet, the effective tariff rate on Canadian goods, accounting for USMCA-compliant trade exemptions, has never exceeded 5%, well below the levels threatened in any given post.

How Canada Is Responding

As a result of everything I just mentioned, the shift in Canadian public opinion has been rapid. The share of Canadians with an unfavourable view of the US rose from 41% in mid-2024 to 74% as of last month. Less than one-quarter now see the US as a friend or ally, a drop of 50 percentage points since 2023. A lot Canadians have cut back on American purchases and cancelled US travel plans, and it’s yet to be seen just how my of a concern the rhetoric gap will have.

Read the full story here.

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MONEY & HAPPINESS
All Four Rogers Siblings Challenge The Estate Trustees

• All four Rogers children are now contesting trustee compensation claims

• Trustees are seeking $11 million for administering the estate

• The estate of Loretta Rogers was valued at roughly $140 million as of end-2024

• Mediation has failed once; siblings and trustees have until September to try again

I guess it’s true; money can’t buy happiness. The dispute over the administration of Loretta Rogers's estate has expanded to include all four of her children. Edward, Lisa, Melinda, and Martha Rogers have each challenged the $11-million in compensation being sought by the estate's three trustees. Two siblings filed formal objections in court; the other two served their challenges directly to the trustees without filing publicly, citing privacy concerns. The matter is now heading back toward mediation after an initial attempt failed to produce a resolution.

What's Being Disputed

The trustees, Lawrence Tanenbaum, Mary Filippelli, and Jim Reid, filed a detailed account of their work administering the estate between Loretta Rogers's death in 2022 and the end of 2024, along with their compensation calculation. Edward Rogers argued in his March filing that a rate of nearly $4,000 per hour was neither fair nor reasonable for an estate of this size. He also lodged a specific objection to any payment to Tanenbaum, noting that he contributed roughly 5% of total trustee hours. The claimed compensation, while below the standard 5% fee guideline on managed assets, drew objections on the basis of the estate's overall scale.

Where Things Stand

The siblings and trustees have agreed to seek a new mediator by the end of May, with a second mediation deadline of September 18. If that process also fails, the matter returns to court. Loretta Rogers's will authorised trustees to take compensation at reasonable intervals and protected them from legal costs, language that is now central to the dispute. None of the allegations has been tested in court, and the trustees have yet to file a formal defense.

Read the full story here..

The Relative Strength Indicator (RSI) can provide a signal that suggest a stock is either overbought or oversold.
📈A stock that has an RSI over 70 is considered to be in “overbought” territory. This might suggest that the stock is due for a pullback, however it is not a recommendation to sell.
📉A stock that is trading with an RSI below 30 is considered to be in “oversold” territory. This might suggest that the stock is due for a recovery, however it is not a recommendation to buy. Always perform your own due diligence.

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