It's Happened...just as predicted
The Bank of Canada raised its benchmark interest rate for the first time since 2007, saying inflation is unfolding as expected and that spillover from the European debt crisis has been limited, while stressing there remains “considerable uncertainty” about an “increasingly uneven” global recovery.
With his much anticipated decision to lift the central bank’s overnight rate by one-quarter of a percentage point to 0.5 per cent after more than a year at a record low level, Governor Mark Carney has become the first central banker in the Group of Seven to tighten since the financial crisis and recession began in 2008.
In a statement on the move, however, Mr. Carney and his rate-setting panel sought to emphasize that investors should not necessarily interpret the increase as the first in an uninterrupted series.