We've found ourselves raving about the beautiful, hot weather that we've been getting here in Southern Alberta only to catch ourselves and remember how much damage this heat can do. While we have really enjoyed all of the sunshine here in the Calgary area, we know that clients in other parts of the province have really struggled. The forest fires in the area Northwest of Red Deer have been awful and we feel for anyone who has been impacted by them. We're hoping for rain and wishing the best for those in our province who had to leave their homes.
We have seen some improvements on the market, at least at the time of this writing. Once again, the Debt Ceiling came up in the United States and once again, we had to go through the negotiations for a deal to prevent US bills from not getting paid. This was an issue a number of times between 2008 and 20161. We really didn't hear about it between 2016 and 2020 (as the sitting president at that time allowed the limit to increase three times2) and thankfully, because a deal was made this year, we shouldn't have to hear about it again until 2025. Although this has led to political drama many times before, the Stock Market doesn't like the threat of a default and we see losses until a resolution is finally made. We got that at the end of May and had some fantastic days of increase on the market afterwards. 2023 has not been a year without challenges but most indexes are up and some quite significantly. The tech-heavy NASDAQ (which had a brutal 2022) has been one of the best performing indexes on the planet. It's gone up almost 30% since the end of December3. Sadly, many will have moved out of their investments in Technology and Sustainability after a very tough last year. It's amazing how quickly things can come back after losses just months before.
We also had an updated analysis of how much the Canadian economy grew in the first part of 2023. Our growth rate ended up being a very respectable 3.1%. This recent data shows that our growth beat out the federal agency's own forecast of 2.5% for Q14. We've now gone almost a year and a half talking about a recession that still hasn't come. To be clear, we do know that we will eventually have a recession. Our job growth, low unemployment and economic gains in Canada have kept us out of one. A similar situation has played out in the USA (our largest trading partner). For the most part, inflation has continued to come down which hopefully means that if Interest Rates do go up a little more, they won't go up much and will start to come back down in the fairly near future.
We'll be staying closer to home for June, July and August this year. You may recall that we did that big road trip out to Ontario last summer. It was a fantastic trip but I don't think the girls want to spend that much time in the car this summer. I think we'll be spending most of our time in Alberta and will do some road trips to Saskatchewan and BC. I plan to see some clients in British Columbia in July and will make it all the way out to the Coast. I have already started contacting clients in the Vancouver area and will continue to do so. I figure we'll also get a couple of trips out to Saskatoon over the next few months. We were in touch with clients all throughout the pandemic but actually getting together in person over the last year and a half has been really valuable. We have built some wonderful relationships over the years and those strong bonds make it that much harder when a client passes away. It's with great sadness that we report that one of our dear clients passed away in May. Natalie and I attended her celebration of life and got to hear some very nice words about her. We have been able to get to know her family a little more throughout this process and are trying to help wherever we can. It's not easy for us to lose someone like this. It's honestly a bit like losing a member of the family.
Take care out there and have a great start to the summer.
Bryce Borden
1The Conversation: - https://theconversation.com/a-brief-history-of-debt-ceiling-crises-and-the-political-chaos-theyve-unleashed-205178
2Bipartisan Policy Center: - https://bipartisanpolicy.org/debt-limit-history/
3MarketWatch: - https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/index/comp
4BNN Bloomberg: - https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/what-slowdown-economy-continues-to-outperform-1.1926930