Doug Porter Quotations

The only complaint about Monday's move is that it was on fairly narrow breadth ... but that shouldn't take away from what's been an entirely impressive run by the TSE, both this month and this year,

What has changed in recent weeks is long-term interest rates across the globe are starting to feel the heat from Fed tightening and now from rate hikes from all kinds of quarters, including Japan and Europe which they really hadn't had to deal with before.

We have seen a string of numbers that suggest the U.S. economy is losing some momentum, which really is a perfect environment because it's not as if growth is grinding to a halt.

We're a clear-cut loser from the spike we're seeing in energy prices.

We've seen rising gasoline prices almost without fail for the past five years now and it has made incredibly little impact on other prices,

Simply put, Canada's balance of payments remains exceptionally strong. It is very tough to make the case that the Canadian dollar is wildly overvalued when the country continues to chalk up solid current account surpluses and net inflows in foreign direct investment.

Obviously, consumers just ignored all the dire warnings and kept on spending.

If the bank does indeed raise rates, they are likely to sound very cautious about future rate moves, with the press release likely to highlight the many risks to the economy.

The overwhelming view is that the bank will continue to raise interest rates, despite the latest strength in the Canadian dollar.

I suspect it was just a bout of profit taking, a bit of nervousness ahead of next week's Fed meeting. Not that anyone's expecting anything out of the Fed's next week, but I think there still are some lingering concerns about the longer-term interest rate outlook. Especially with oil prices pushing above $32 a barrel,

It clearly shows that the U.S. economy is very strong and isn't slowing down. That doesn't bode well for the possibility of inflation and it doesn't bode well for the outlook for the U.S. dollar.

I think what the market is waiting for is some signs of stabilization in the global economy, and especially the U.S. economy.

I think it's quite possible revenues will come in on the high side of expectations simply because we've had very robust corporate profit growth over the last year.

I think there are more pieces of good news here than bad news.

Some of the high-flying tech stocks, and again those are the ones without earnings, turned tail around mid-afternoon in line with the share pull-back in the Nasdaq.

Some of the weakness in the broader market was probably due to the fact that New York suffered a fairly large sell-off.

I think Monday's decline is pretty modest after last week's sprint, so a bit of a pullback is not a complete surprise.

Today's report reinforces the view that last year's energy price spike simply was not passed onto other prices.

We have a few economic numbers coming up that will probably shed some more light on just how strong the U.S. economy is, ... The perception is that nothing is slowing the economy down yet, especially with the markets going the way they are.

though to be more realistic I think it will struggle to get back above 90 cents.

The deepening slide in manufacturing is notable, although solid gains in other areas continue to pick up the slack. The moderation in wage growth will be welcome by the Bank of Canada.

There is a bit of risk because it will probably pump up real retail sales ... from all the various tax cuts.

While there are still concerns about further Fed rate hikes down the road, it does seem as if the Fed's on hold for now and investors are starting to reassess which companies still have the best long-term prospects,

The recovery in the global financial backdrop is a key part of the outlook for tightening,

What it shows is that inventories are still in pretty good balance. There's no sign that there's any unwanted build-up.

Even though the headline number looked good on the TSE, there is still a slight concern that it's moving forward on vary narrow breadth,

As the negatives keep stacking up for the province, we will see growth weaken .Ê.Ê. and begin to dig into the province's revenues.

At the very least, it drums on the point that they'll continue to raise interest rates. By deductive reasoning, you'd assume that they don't have a big problem with the strength of the currency.

Personally, I don't trust a lot of the drivers in town, they are crazy and careless, but they've been pretty good so far.

After about a two-week lull we'll get back to business this week, ... We've had a few signs that the economy is losing some momentum and these reports will help indicate whether that's really the case.

There was a strong hint in their latest minutes that they're talking about half percentage point moves in interest rates rather than just these baby steps of a quarter percentage point move.

There's been a slight upward revision of expectations for Fed tightening, which would keep the spread between rates locked in. The earlier view was that the spread might narrow.

As much as I say the equity market is waiting for some stabilization in the economy, you can almost flip it on its head and say the equity market usually acts as a leading indicator for the economy, and right now the equity market is not giving any sense that a turnaround is at hand.

It was a narrowly based rally, ... A lot of the big winners that had tremendous increases in the past ,just kept rolling along.

That he says 'the downside risks predominate,' however, suggests we can expect further interest-rate cuts over the course of the spring. I would expect a 50 basis point (half-percentage point) cut at the next meeting.

They ... continue to drum home the point that this isn't going to be a huge extended tightening cycle with them pointing out, yet again, the risks beyond 2006.

They'll basically grin and bear it. Well, maybe they won't grin, but they'll bear it,

These together will probably increase consumer spending and at the margin . . . it will put a bit of upward pressure on growth and could potentially put that much more pressure on the Bank of Canada to raise interest rates.

The message that seeped out was that he does think that they've pretty much done enough to bring the economy in for a soft landing, and that really is an ideal world for equities. While it was disguised, it certainly was a very bullish message for both bonds and stocks,

The interest rate differential continues to attract money to the U.S..

In fact, over the past week, it was a veritable blood bath for commodity prices.

I guess the other concern is the continued weakness in the U.S ... it raises some serious concern over what the market is telling us for the North American economy going forward.

Canada's dollar still has a lot of supporters out there. The economy is performing very well and the central bank may go further.

This is a clear-cut negative for Canadian growth.

And I think a lot of it flows from a combination of very positive Canadian economic data on Thursday, as well as more signs out of the U.S. that the U.S. economy is cooling to a sustainable pace and that the (Federal Reserve) will be on hold for some time.

The combination of strong full-time job growth, the low-low jobless rate, rising wage gains and a decent regional balance to the employment picture make this a very healthy report overall.

The market is expecting strong first-quarter growth and employment cost numbers, which could signal more rate increases from the Fed down the road than what people are currently expecting.

The main story is foreign investors are more than willing to finance the U.S. current-account deficit. The stability, indeed the strength, of the U.S. dollar in 2005 encouraged investors back into the U.S.