The Federal Reserve Board said that the coronavirus outbreak presented a “new risk” to the economic outlook for the U.S. and warned of disruptions in global markets.
“Because of the size of the Chinese economy, significant distress in China could spill over to U.S. and global markets through a retrenchment of risk appetite, U.S. dollar appreciation, and declines in trade and commodity prices,” the U.S. central bank wrote in its semi-annual report to Congress released on Friday in Washington. “The effects of the coronavirus in China have presented a new risk to the outlook.”
The coronavirus has claimed more than 600 lives since its outbreak in China. Some economists have started to mark down their first-quarter U.S. growth estimates as China’s economy is expected to slow due to the coronavirus outbreak.
Powell will discuss the economy and monetary policy before the House Financial Services Committee on Feb. 11 and the Senate banking panel the following day. The Monetary Policy Report released Friday is aimed at informing the Congress of the Fed’s outlook and sense of risks to U.S. and global growth.
Stress points
A special section on financial stability was more descriptive than the previous report on possible points of stress in some areas. The Fed said that low interest rates had elevated asset valuations, and it also pointed to risks in the corporate debt markets.
“The concentration of investment-grade debt at the lower end of the investment-grade spectrum creates the risk that adverse developments, such as a deterioration in economic activity, could lead to a sizable volume of bond downgrades to speculative-grade ratings,” the Fed said. “Such conditions could trigger investors to sell the downgraded bonds rapidly, increasing market illiquidity and causing outsized downward price pressures.”
The Fed also mentioned that volatility in repurchase agreement markets in September “highlighted the possibility for frictions in repo markets to spill over to other markets.”
U.S. central bankers kept their benchmark interest rate unchanged at their meeting last month after cutting three times in 2019. Forecasts released in December show that most of them expect to stay on hold through 2020, keeping the Fed on the sidelines during a U.S. presidential election year.
Chairman Jerome Powell told reporters on Jan. 29 that monetary policy is “well positioned” to support growth, labor markets and a return of inflation to the Fed’s 2% target.
On the domestic front, Labor Department data released earlier on Friday showed the U.S. jobs market remains durable. Payrolls increased by a stronger-than-expected 225,000 workers and average hourly earnings climbed 3.1% from a year earlier.
Manufacturing slowdown
The report also devoted a section breaking down the slowdown of manufacturing in the U.S. in 2019. The Fed attributed the decline to a range of issues including international trade tensions, weak global growth, softer business investment, lower oil prices affecting drillers and the slowdown in production of Boeing Co.’s 737 Max airliner.
While the 2019 decline in manufacturing accounted directly for a 0.15% drop in gross domestic product, Fed economists estimated that number rises 0.5% when adding the impact on purchased inputs and downstream activities, like transport and marketing.
A poor 2019 also comes amid a long-run deterioration of manufacturing in the U.S. as a share of employment and GDP that goes back more than half a century and has continued this century. Factory output has grown just 0.5% a year since 2001, with only two of those years recording gains greater than 3.5%.
OTTAWA – The parliamentary budget officer says the federal government likely failed to keep its deficit below its promised $40 billion cap in the last fiscal year.
However the PBO also projects in its latest economic and fiscal outlook today that weak economic growth this year will begin to rebound in 2025.
The budget watchdog estimates in its report that the federal government posted a $46.8 billion deficit for the 2023-24 fiscal year.
Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland pledged a year ago to keep the deficit capped at $40 billion and in her spring budget said the deficit for 2023-24 stayed in line with that promise.
The final tally of the last year’s deficit will be confirmed when the government publishes its annual public accounts report this fall.
The PBO says economic growth will remain tepid this year but will rebound in 2025 as the Bank of Canada’s interest rate cuts stimulate spending and business investment.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 17, 2024.
OTTAWA – Statistics Canada says the level of food insecurity increased in 2022 as inflation hit peak levels.
In a report using data from the Canadian community health survey, the agency says 15.6 per cent of households experienced some level of food insecurity in 2022 after being relatively stable from 2017 to 2021.
The reading was up from 9.6 per cent in 2017 and 11.6 per cent in 2018.
Statistics Canada says the prevalence of household food insecurity was slightly lower and stable during the pandemic years as it fell to 8.5 per cent in the fall of 2020 and 9.1 per cent in 2021.
In addition to an increase in the prevalence of food insecurity in 2022, the agency says there was an increase in the severity as more households reported moderate or severe food insecurity.
It also noted an increase in the number of Canadians living in moderately or severely food insecure households was also seen in the Canadian income survey data collected in the first half of 2023.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct 16, 2024.
OTTAWA – Statistics Canada says manufacturing sales in August fell to their lowest level since January 2022 as sales in the primary metal and petroleum and coal product subsectors fell.
The agency says manufacturing sales fell 1.3 per cent to $69.4 billion in August, after rising 1.1 per cent in July.
The drop came as sales in the primary metal subsector dropped 6.4 per cent to $5.3 billion in August, on lower prices and lower volumes.
Sales in the petroleum and coal product subsector fell 3.7 per cent to $7.8 billion in August on lower prices.
Meanwhile, sales of aerospace products and parts rose 7.3 per cent to $2.7 billion in August and wood product sales increased 3.8 per cent to $3.1 billion.
Overall manufacturing sales in constant dollars fell 0.8 per cent in August.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 16, 2024.
