Home Capital Group says new mortgage rules have clients migrating from big banks + MORE Feb 15th

Enbridge hopes sales will help speed up debt reduction, strengthen its balance sheet and raise its dividend

A flood of buyers and sellers looking to close deals late last year ahead of looming tighter mortgage rules resulted in a 14.5 per cent “payback” drop in home sales between December and January, market watchers said Thursday.
Economists expected the drastic decline, which marked the lowest sales level in three years, and anticipate the market will continue to be dampened in the near future as Canadians negotiate the new rules and a January interest rates hike, the third in the past year.
“It’s the biggest monthly percentage drop in sales activity since October 2008,” said Gregory Klump, the Canadian Real Estate Association’s chief economist, referencing when the country was in the midst of the so-called Great Recession.
January activity was down in three-quarters of all local markets and virtually all major urban areas, especially in Ontario’s hot spot in the Greater Golden Horseshoe, according to data released by CREA Thursday. The decline was less significant on an annual basis, with sales falling 2…

TORONTO _ Canada’s main stock index posted its second straight day of gains, as North American markets bounced back after a negative start to the trading session.
The Toronto Stock Exchange’s S&P/TSX composite index advanced 79.39 points to 15,407.66, with the real estate and utilities sectors leading a largely broad-based advance.
In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average advanced 306.88 points to 25,200.37. The S&P 500 index was up 32.57 points to 2,731.20 and the Nasdaq composite index added 112.81 points to 7,256.43.
The Canadian dollar closed at an average trading value of 79.96 cents US, up 0.35 of a U.S. cent.
The April crude contract was up 66 cents to US$61.17 per barrel and the March natural gas contract gave back a cent at US$2.58 per mmBTU.
The April gold contract was down US$2.70 to US$1,355.30 an ounce and the March copper contract was up one cent to US$3.25 a pound.
The post Toronto stock index and Wall Street rebound, as loonie strengthens appeared first on Canadian Business – Your Source For Business News.

More than any other demographic, young adults have to be savvy about the stock market while investing for retirement

TORONTO _ Home Capital Group Inc. believes early results from this year suggest that mortgage business may be migrating to the alternative lender after the federal banking regulator introduced tougher rules for uninsured mortgages at the beginning of the year _ even though it too is required to abide by the requirements.
Preliminary indicators also suggest the credit quality of Home Capital mortgage originations is improving after the new rules were introduced Jan. 1, though it’s difficult to precisely quantify the impact, chief executive Yousry Bissada said on a conference call Thursday to discuss its fourth-quarter earnings.
“We have observed that some of our customers have been impacted by the stress test, and have therefore qualified for smaller loans than they would have last year.”
The rules for federally regulated lenders introduce a stress test for borrowers with a more than 20 per cent down payment to prove that they can service mortgage at a qualifying rate of the greater of the contractual mortgage rate plus two percentage point or the five-year benchmark rate published by the Bank of Canada…