The great fall of China + MORE May 4th

Making smart financial decisions is more important than ever, especially when it comes to buying your first home. Use these three easy steps to make sure you’re ready before you hit the open houses this Spring.
Step 1: Know what you can afford
Before you start looking for a home, make sure you understand just how much you can afford to pay. In addition to watching the real estate market in the area where you’re thinking of buying, track your household finances and stick to a budget to see if you can afford the cost of carrying the mortgage you’d need to buy your new home. Scotiabank’s What Can I Afford? Tool can help.
Step 2: Build your down payment
It’s important to start saving for a down payment as soon as you decide to buy a home. The more you save, the less you’ll have to borrow and the less interest you’ll pay over the life of your mortgage. Plus, if your down payment is at least 20% of the cost of the home, you won’t have to buy mortgage insurance.
Need ways to save for your down payment? Use Scotiabank’s Money Finder Calculator to see how you’re spending your money…

The Alberta election, jobs and trade numbers, a speech from the Bank of Canada’s No. 2 official and Bombardier earnings are some key events we’re following this week.

KANSAS CITY, Kan. – General Motors says it will invest $174 million in its Fairfax plant in Kansas City, Kansas.
Announcing the investment Monday, visiting company officials said it will pay for new equipment and technology for production of the 2016 Malibu, which will begin later this year.
CEO Mary Barra and GM North America and Global Chevrolet President Alan Batey also celebrated as the company noted production of 500 million vehicles in its history, about 12 million of them at the Fairfax plant.
Barra says the company plans to build 10 million vehicles this year.
The company surprised Iraqi war veteran Trent Brining with the symbolic key to a 2016 Chevrolet Malibu, which will be built later this year at the plant.
The post General Motors will invest $174 million in to support Malibu production at Kansas plant appeared first on Canadian Business – Your Source For Business News.

Fairfax Financial Holdings working on a deal with BIDV Insurance, which has commercial ties with one of Vietnam’s largest banks

(AP Photo)
On Shanghai street corners, China’s bull market is raging. With Chinese stock indexes up more than 130 per cent in just one year, the masses are rushing to get in on the action. Last week, more than four million Chinese opened new stock-trading accounts. Investors, many of them novices, have borrowed the equivalent of a quarter of a trillion dollars (up 50 per cent in three months) to play the market. Meanwhile it’s not unusual to see crowds gathered around sidewalk stalls where self-professed market experts offer stock tips like this: “When a Communist Party chairman takes office, I buy stock in companies from his hometown.”
Given the exuberance, you might think China’s economy is in great shape. But, in the eyes of Anne Stevenson-Yang, a highly regarded China expert, the situation is dire. As she recently warned at a conference organized by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, China faces one of two paths: either a drawn-out economic malaise, “a whimper,” or an acute crisis, “a bang…