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Monday March 17

China industrial production, retail sales and fixed asset investment

(8:15 a.m. ET) Canadian housing starts for February. Estimate is an annualized rate rise of 4.3 per cent.

(8:30 a.m. ET) Canada’s construction investment for January.

(8:30 a.m. ET) Canada’s international securities transactions for January.

(8:30 a.m. ET) U.S. retail sales for February. The Street is forecasting a rise of 0.7 per cent from January and up 0.4 per cent year-over-year.

(8:30 a.m. ET) U.S. Empire State Manufacturing Survey for March.

(9 a.m. ET) Canadian existing home sales and average prices for February. Estimates are year-over-year declines of 11.0 per cent and 1.0 per cent. respectively.

(9 a.m. ET) Canada’s MLS Home Price Index for February. Estimate is a flat reading year-over-year.

(10 a.m. ET) U.S. business inventories for January. Consensus is a month-over-month increase of 0.3 per cent.

(10 a.m. ET) U.S. NAHB Housing Market Index for March.

Earnings include: Cardinal Energy Ltd.; K92 Mining Inc.

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Tuesday March 18

Bank of Japan monetary policy meeting (through Wednesday)

Euro zone trade surplus

(8:30 a.m. ET) Canada’s CPI for February. The Street is projecting a rise of 0.6 per cent from January and up 2.2 per cent year-over-year.

(8:30 a.m. ET) U.S. housing starts for February. Consensus is an annualized rate increase of 0.7 per cent.

(8:30 a.m. ET) U.S. building permits for February. Consensus is an annualized rate decline of 1.6 per cent.

(8:30 a.m. ET) U.S. import prices for February. The Street is expecting a gain of 0.1 per cent from January and up 1.5 per cent year-over-year.

(9:15 a.m. ET) U.S. industrial production for February. Consensus is a rise of 0.2 per cent from January with capacity utilization remaining 77.8 per cent.

Also: U.S. Fed meeting begins

Earnings include: Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc.; Ivanhoe Electric Inc.; Orla Mining Ltd.

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Wednesday March 19

Japan trade balance, core machine orders, industrial production and machine tool orders

Euro zone CPI and labour costs

(8:30 a.m. ET) Canada’s population estimates from Q4 of 2024.

(2 p.m. ET) U.S. Fed announcement with chair Jerome Powell’s press briefing to follow.

Earnings include: General Mills Inc.; Power Corp. of Canada; Wesdome Gold Mines Ltd.

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Thursday March 20

China’s markets closed

ECB economic bulletin is released

Bank of England monetary policy meeting

(8:30 a.m. ET) Canada’s IPPI and RMPI for February.

(8:30 a.m. ET) Canadian household and mortgage credit for January.

(8:30 a.m. ET) U.S. initial jobless claims for week of March 15. Estimate is 225,000, up 5,000 from the previous week.

(8:30 a.m. ET) U.S. current account deficit for Q4.

(10 a.m. ET) U.S. existing home sales for February. Consensus is an annualized rate decline of 3.4 per cent.

(10 a.m. ET) U.S. leading indicator for February.

(1:05 p.m. ET) Bank of Canada governor Tiff Macklem speaks to Calgary Economic Development.

Earnings include: Accenture PLC; Cintas Corp.; FedEx Corp.; Lennar Corp.; Micron Technology Inc.; Nike Inc.; Skeena Resources Ltd.

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Friday March 21

China CPI

Euro zone consumer confidence

(8:30 a.m. ET) Canadian retail sales for January. Estimate is a decline of 0.4 per cent from December (or flat excluding automobiles).

(8:30 a.m. ET) Canada’s new housing price index for February. Estimates are 0.1-per-cent declines from January and year-over-year.

Earnings include: Dentalcorp Holdings Ltd.

• President Donald Trump has escalated a trade dispute with Canada by implementing a blanket 25% tariff on Canadian goods imported into the United States, with some exceptions.
• The United States and Canada have long been allies and trading partners due to shared global interest and physical proximity.
• Experts warn that shifting trade policies could make the U.S. an unreliable partner, impacting future economic ties with Canada.

The future of U.S.-Canada trade after tariff escalation

• Canada’s new prime minister rejected the idea repeatedly voiced by President Donald Trump that the nation would become the 51st U.S. state.
• “We will never, ever, in any way, shape or form, be part of the United States,” Prime Minister Mark Carney said after being sworn in in Ottawa.
• Carney’s comments came after weeks of suggestions by Trump that Canada would be absorbed into the United States, and as the U.S. president imposes stiff tariffs on the neighboring country.

Trump rebuked by Canada PM Mark Carney on joining U.S.

Gold prices gained on Thursday, holding near all-time high levels, as elevated tariff uncertainty and bets on monetary policy easing by the Federal Reserve kept bullion’s appeal strong.

Spot gold firmed 0.7% to $2,953.39 an ounce, just shy from the record high of $2,956.15 scaled in February. U.S. gold futures were up 0.6% at $2,963.20.

“Gold is in a secular bull market. We forecast prices to trade between $3,000-$3,200 this year,” said Alex Ebkarian, chief operating officer at Allegiance Gold.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s latest trade policies have helped gold gain 12% so far this year, an asset preferred by investors amid geopolitical and economic turmoil. U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said a recession would be “worth it” to get Trump’s economic policies in place.

Data from the U.S. Labor Department showed producer prices were unexpectedly unchanged in February, while consumer price index rose 0.2% last month after accelerating 0.5% in January.

Meanwhile, the number of Americans filing new applications for unemployment benefits fell last week, but sharp government spending cuts and an escalating trade war threaten labor market stability.

“The Federal Reserve is going to be at a point where they might be forced to lower interest rates. A drop in interest rates is viewed as a positive for gold because the opportunity costs drops when yields drops,” Ebkarian added.

The Fed is expected to keep its benchmark overnight interest rate in the 4.25%-4.50% range next Wednesday, having reduced it by 100 basis points since September. Traders expect the U.S. central bank to resume cutting borrowing costs in June after it paused its easing cycle in January.

Spot silver rose 0.1% at $33.26.

“A strong breakout above $33.30 could open the doors toward $34 for silver,” said Lukman Otunuga, senior research analyst at FXTM.

Platinum lost 0.2% to $981.90, while palladium dropped 0.6% to $943.24.

S&P Dow Jones Indices announced late Friday that it is adding two stocks and deleting four from the S&P/TSX Composite Index, the broadest measure of the Canadian market.

No changes are being made to the S&P/TSX 60, a selection of most of the largest companies in the composite.

S&P Dow Jones uses “float” – the value of shares that aren’t held by insiders and that therefore trade frequently and are easily available to the public – to judge whether a company should be included in its indexes. The index provider does not release its proprietary float calculations.

S&P said it will add Endeavour Silver Corp. EDR-T +3.60%increase and gold miner G Mining Ventures Corp. GMIN-T +3.68%increase.

S&P said it will delete forestry company Interfor Corp.IFP-T -0.79%decrease; energy-equipment seller Mattr Corp. MATR-T -2.10%decrease; restaurant owner MTY Food Group Inc MTY-T -2.93%decrease and real estate company Storagevault Canada Inc. SVI-DB-T +0.25%increase.

The changes will be effective at the open of markets on March 24.

The stocks S&P Dow Jones removed aren’t the worst performers of the year – they just have fallen enough since thelast quarterly rebalancing in December, to make them too small to stay in.

Mattr shares have fallen 19.7 per cent since the end of November, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence. Interfor has fallen 16.0 per cent, MTY is down 6.2 per cent, and StorageVault is down 1.0 per cent.

To get into the composite, a company’s float-adjusted market capitalization must be 0.04 per cent, or four-hundredths of a percentage point, of the total value of the index. To stay in the composite, a company’s float must not drop below 0.025 per cent, or 2.5 hundredths of a percentage point, of the total value of the index.

With the growth of index funds and other passive investing strategies, whether a stock is part of a major index can have a meaningful effect on share prices. Fund managers who track an index need to hold shares in the underlying companies. Canadian stocks added to the composite – which has about 220 to 250 members, depending on the quarter – can see price bumps before and after inclusion. Similarly, companies removed from the index lose a source of demand for their shares.

Research by Morningstar Direct for The Globe and Mail found Canadian mutual funds and exchange-traded funds with assets under management amounting to $265-billion had returns that were 95 per cent or more correlated with the S&P/TSX Composite over the 12 months ended Dec. 31, 2024. This included funds that explicitly say they track the index.

This week, S&P Dow Jones said it will consider a significant change that would allow some companies to appear in multiple countries’ indexes, paving the way for companies such as Brookfield Asset Management Ltd. BAM-T -2.50%decrease, Shopify Inc. SHOP-T -3.85%decrease, and the former Ritchie Bros. Auctioneers Inc. to be both Canadian and American.

S&P Dow Jones says it could allow companies “with significant ties to Canada” to stay in a Canadian index even if it normally would consider the company “domiciled” in another country. The company would need to be incorporated in Canada to be eligible.

Until now, S&P Dow Jones has said a company can have just one country of domicile – and that country’s stock indexes are where it needs to be.

U.S. producer prices were unchanged in February for the first time in seven months, while fewer Americans filed claims for unemployment benefits last week, pointing to a stable economy that should allow the Federal Reserve to keep interest rates steady next week.

But the calm painted by the reports from the Labor Department on Thursday could be upended by radical government spending cuts, which have pushed thousands of federal employees out of work, and an escalating trade war stemming from broad import tariffs.

The aggressive policies being pursued by President Donald Trump’s administration have sent business and consumer confidence plummeting, and raised the chances of a recession. U.S. airlines have cut their earnings estimates noting that corporations and consumers were scaling back spending because of mounting economic uncertainty.

“No factory inflation and no worrisome job layoffs either, so there is nothing to slow the economy’s advance for now,” said Christopher Rupkey, chief economist at FWDBONDS.

“Nevertheless, the radical, buzz-saw cuts in spending and personnel down in Washington could eventually spread to the rest of the private economy in the months to come and it has already created enough uncertainty for company CEOs to potentially halt the economy’s forward progress starting in the second quarter.”

The unchanged reading in the producer price index for final demand last month, the first since July, followed an upwardly revised 0.6 per cent increase in January, the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics said.

Economists polled by Reuters had forecast the PPI rising 0.3 per cent after a previously reported 0.4 per cent increase in January. In the 12 months through February, the PPI climbed 3.2 per cent after rising 3.7 per cent in January.

But there were unfavourable details in the components that go into the calculation of the Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) price indexes, which are tracked by the U.S. central bank for its 2 per cent inflation target. That was similar to the consumer price data on Wednesday.

Goods prices rose 0.3 per cent, with a 53.6 per cent surge in wholesale egg prices accounting for two-thirds of the increase. Goods prices rose 0.6 per cent in January. A raging bird flu outbreak is driving egg prices higher, boosting the cost of food. Wholesale food prices shot up 1.7 per cent after increasing 1.0 per cent in January.

Energy prices fell 1.2 per cent. Excluding the volatile food and energy components, goods prices jumped 0.4 per cent after gaining 0.2 per cent in the prior month. Further gains are likely amid an escalation in trade tensions. President Donald Trump has ignited a trade war, increasing tariffs on goods from China to 20 per cent, with Beijing retaliating with duties of its own.

Trump imposed a new 25 per cent duty on Canadian and Mexican imports, before providing a one-month exemption for goods that meet the rules of origin under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement on trade. Enhanced steel and aluminum tariffs drew swift retaliation from Europe and Canada.

Economists expect the effects of the slew of tariffs by the Trump administration to show in the months ahead.

The cost of services fell 0.2 per cent amid a 1.4 per cent decline in margins for machinery and vehicle wholesaling, after rising 0.6 per cent in January. There were also decreases in the margins for food and alcohol, automobiles and automobile parts as well as apparel, footwear, and accessories retailing.

But prices for hospital inpatient care increased 0.8 per cent. Portfolio management fees rose 0.5 per cent, while airline fares were unchanged. Hotel and motel accommodation prices dipped 0.1 per cent.

Portfolio management fees, health care, hotel and motel accommodation and airline fares are among the components that go into the calculation of the core PCE price index.

With the two reports in hand, economists estimated that the PCE price index excluding the volatile food and energy components rose by 0.3 per cent in February, with high odds for a 0.4 per cent increase. Core PCE inflation gained 0.3 per cent in January.

It was forecast rising 2.7 per cent year-on-year after advancing 2.6 per cent in January. The Fed is expected to keep its benchmark overnight interest rate in the 4.25 per cent-4.50 per cent range next Wednesday, having reduced it by 100 basis points since September.

U.S. stocks opened lower. The dollar advanced against a basket of currencies. U.S. Treasury yields rose.

Financial markets expect the Fed to resume cutting borrowing costs in June after it paused its easing cycle in January, as the escalation in trade tensions threatens the economic expansion. The policy rate was hiked by 5.25 percentage points in 2022 and 2023 to tame inflation.

A separate report from the Labor Department showed initial claims for state unemployment benefits slipped 2,000 to a seasonally adjusted 220,000 for the week ended March 8. Economists had forecast 225,000 claims for the latest week.

Risks for the labour market are, however, tilted to the downside. Thousands of federal government workers, mostly on probation, have been fired by tech billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, an entity created by Trump to drastically shrink the government.

Unions representing some of the civil servants have challenged the layoffs, resulting in reinstatements. Agencies have a Thursday deadline to submit plans for large-scale layoffs. The federal government upheaval has not yet significantly filtered through to official labour market data.

A separate unemployment compensation for federal employees (UCFE) program, which is reported with a one-week lag, showed applications little changed.

“With all the gyrations between DOGE, agency cuts, and the courts, the number of federal employees already going without a paycheque is unclear,” said Andrew Stettner, a senior fellow at the Century Foundation. “What we know … is that the cruel way in which Trump is cutting government payrolls is making it hard for laid-off federal employees to get benefits.”

Spending cuts have, however, impacted contractors, accounting for the elevation in Washington D.C. claims.

The number of people receiving benefits after an initial week of aid, a proxy for hiring, decreased 27,000 to a seasonally adjusted 1.870 million during the week ending March 1, the claims report showed.

The European Union has announced retaliation plans in response to President Donald Trump’s 25% steel and aluminum tariffs. 

A European Commission press release declares that EU retaliatory actions could apply to American exports worth up to €26 billion.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen spoke against tariffs, but said that the move was a “proportionate” response to the U.S.

“Tariffs are taxes. They are bad for business, and worse for consumers,” she said. “The European Union must act to protect consumers and business. The countermeasures we take today are strong but proportionate. As the United States are applying tariffs worth $28 billion dollars, we are responding with countermeasures worth $26 billion Euros.”

The EU’s retaliation is slated to come in two parts.

“First, the Commission will allow the suspension of existing 2018 and 2020 countermeasures against the US to lapse on 1 April. These countermeasures target a range of US products that respond to the economic harm done on €8 billion of EU steel and aluminium exports,” the European Commission press release notes

Trump’s new 25% tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum went into effect Wednesday

Canada announced $21 billion in additional tariffs against the U.S. Wednesday after President Donald Trump’s new 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum went into effect.

Canada is the biggest foreign supplier of steel and aluminum to the U.S.

“Today, I am announcing that the government of Canada, following a dollar-for-dollar approach, will be imposing, as of 12:01 a.m. tomorrow, March 13, 2025, 25% reciprocal tariffs on an additional $29.8 billion of imports from the United States,” Canadian Finance Minister Dominic LeBlanc said. “This includes steel products worth $12.6 billion and aluminum products worth $3 billion as well as additional imported U.S. goods worth $14.2 billion.” 

“The list of additional products affected by counter-tariffs includes computers, sports equipment, and cast iron products as examples,” he continued.

“We will not stand idly by while our iconic steel and aluminum industries are being unfairly targeted,” LeBlanc added, according to the CBC. 

President Donald Trump’s 25% tariff increase on all steel and aluminum imports officially took effect on Wednesday, the latest move in the administration’s plans to reshape global trade norms in favor of U.S. manufacturing.  

The action prompted retaliation from the European Commission, which announced shortly after Trump’s tariffs took effect that it would impose counter tariffs on the equivalent of $28 billion worth of U.S. goods starting next month. 

“We regret the unjustified US 25% tariff on steel and aluminium imports. The EU will protect its consumers and businesses,” the Commission said in a statement. “We are launching swift, proportionate countermeasures worth up to ($28 billion), matching the economic impact of the US tariffs.”

Trump’s action to bulk up protections for American steel and aluminum producers restores effective global tariffs of 25% on all imports of the metals and extends the duties to hundreds of downstream products made from the metals – everything from nuts and bolts to bulldozer blades and soda cans.

The countries most affected by the tariffs are Canada, the biggest foreign supplier of steel and aluminum to the U.S., Brazil, Mexico and South Korea, which all have enjoyed some level of exemptions or quotas.