Time now for a look at business with Mike Apple
from City News 680.
Mike, happy first day of spring.
How you doing? Yes, good.
Thank you. Saw a flock of Robins just the other
day.
I thought you're going to say seagulls.
Well, no great, great hair band,
but flock of Robins in this.
I really thought seagulls was coming.
You, you, you pulled an envelope.
I know you did. I know you did.
And of course, the lovely crocuses are up and now
they're
going back in hibernation. I'm thinking,
well, that's, you know, the,
the the world turns on and it continues to turn
here.
The the economic news continues to turn.
Inflation numbers for February out this morning.
What are we expecting, Mr.
Apple? They're not going to be good,
Sid. In fact, the inflation rate's expected to go back
up again to
3.1% on the headline, back above the 3%
threshold in the Bank of Canada of course wants to
get that down to around 2%.
It was
2.9% inflation rate for January.
Energy costs have gone up.
We've got the price for gas at a six month
high
this morning. Mortgage interest costs,
food prices are still up.
We'll see other factors raising the cost of living.
Once again. The Bank of Canada sets policy on April
6th.
They're not going to change rates.
Then it might push back the timeline for any interest
rate relief because inflation just continues to be very stubborn.
The Conservative plan. Federal Conservatives wanted to hold them an
emergency debate this week to talk about the carbon tax,
which of course is going up on April 1st.
That did not pass muster though,
and they're not going to get that.
But you have to figure that once the inflation day
it comes out,
you'll see the X postings all about the cost of
living and what's driving it.
Yeah, the Conservatives will get a talking point or two
out of that, no doubt
moving on. A big talking point in this country,
small businesses and more struggles for them.
Yeah, Equifax saying that business,
small business insolvencies jumped by
41% in Q4 last year.
That is a big increase.
Now again, we're getting back to sort of pre pandemic
levels.
If you were they really,
you know, we had the Siebel loans,
Those are going to be needing to be repaid.
Interest rates are still very expensive for
borrowing for small businesses. Labor costs have gone up,
input costs have gone up.
Analysts are saying it's the perfect storm
right now for small Canadian,
small business dealing with everything.
So this is the Canary in the coal mine,
so to speak, Sid to watch for,
for economic
fallout if you will, from the small business community.
Because look, that's such a key driver to Canada's economy
and GDP, so watch for it.
Wow. Any light on the horizon at all on this
regard,
Mike? Not until we start hearing about interest rates coming
down.
Well Speaking of look interest rates they're they're the global
headline in a lot of ways right now we're seeing
odd things globally
and in Japan it's no different a a very unique
headline interest rate wise from that country.
They've had negative interest rates actually dating back years.
They've put it into official,
not legislation, but to official status.
Back in 2016, the Bank of Japan's been doing this
social experiment,
if you will. They've got aging demographics they do not
see or have not seen the inflationary pressures that other
economies have had.
So they've kept interest rates remarkably low,
but now raising rates for the first time in 17
years because lo and behold,
wage pressures are up and and import costs are on
the rise.
So they're kind of maybe normalizing things a little bit.
Of course, everywhere else, interest rates are,
you know, 5-6 percent. Japan's been the outlier
17 years. First time that's happened.
Wow.
All right. Finally, Mr. Apple,
potentially pot stocks could be on a high.
Is that what you're saying?
Showing some green lighting up,
if you will? Look, we've seen these head fakes before
about the US going with nationwide legalization of marijuana.
There is some talk the Department of Drug Enforcement,
DEA might be reducing the classification for marijuana in the
US from a classification of three,
which is
up high if you will,
down to a class one which would be the equivalent
of steroids or
Tylenol with codeine. So that could open the door to
further pot sales in the states for the big Canadian
companies looking for export markets.
So companies like Canopy Growth yesterday jumped 20%,
Aurora was up by 17%.
We'll see if this actually though comes to fruition because
again,
they've tried this before and it hasn't
had any headway, so we'll see.
By the way, I said quick
notes here, Bitcoin this morning,
tumbling in the early trade,
it's down to 63,000. A week ago it was at
74,000. The Air being let out of that bubble to
some extent.
And NVIDIA, your favorite company,
unveiling a new AI computer chip last night,
that's 30 times faster than the predecessor because that's what
we need,
even faster AI technology. Yes,
let's reach our doom quicker,
I say. There you go,
Let's get there. Why? Why waste time,
Mr. Apple? Sure, why waste time?
Never a waste of time with Mike Apple.