While we got some much-needed rain in Calgary in May, the sun seems to have come out for June! We've had some beautiful days to start the month and have been able to spend good chunks of our weekends outside lately. This will be our third year with Solar Panels on the roof so we like seeing these sunny days more than ever now. When the sun is shining, we are producing energy, and lots of it!!
Not only have we got some hot weather in Southern Alberta, we've also seen a hot Real Estate Market. The Calgary and Edmonton Metropolitan areas are some of the fastest growing in the country and so are the Saskatoon and Regina regions1. We've seen strong interprovincial migration into Alberta and that's led to a real boom for our largest cities' populations2. Edmonton's metro population is approximately 1.6 million now and Calgary's is closing in on 1.7 million. The population boom has led to a hot Housing Market with inventory moving quickly and prices on the rise3.
We've also had a hot Global Stock Market. Previous Newsletters mentioned how strong the market has been since November of 2023. That's kept up well into 2024 with numerous Stock Exchanges around the world hitting new Record Highs this Spring. US Markets have hit a number of new highs in 2024 and we've seen new records in Germany, Japan and the UK4. Our own Canadian Stock Market was slow to get to a new pinnacle, but finally got there in April this year. By May, we'd hit some fresh new highs5. I'll admit, it's been nice to have so much good news to report after everything we've gone through since 2020!!
We had an update on how much the Canadian economy grew in the first part of 2024 with the number coming in at 1.7%6. While this is positive, it's considerably slower growth than in Q1 of 2023. The good news is that Inflation has stayed below 3% for some time now. I'm writing this two days before the Bank of Canada will make an Interest Rate Adjustment; Hopefully we have received a Rate Cut by the time you read this. That would certainly be a nice way to go into the summer!
Take care and stay in touch,
Bryce A. Borden
2CBC News: Calgary population surges by staggering 6%, Edmonton by 4.2% in latest StatsCan estimates
3WOWA: Alberta Housing Market Report
5Trading Economics: Canada Stock Market Index (TSX)
6TD Economics: Canadian Monthly GDP (Q1 2024)