REAL LONG INTEREST RATE The Bank of Canada 30 year Bond Rate less CPI and the TSX Real Estate Index. Household Savings Rate Chart Below. See also the Real 10yr Rate the Interest Rate Spread and the Canadian Yield Curve
CLICK CHART TO ENLARGE
The chart above shows that in June 2020, the real long (30yr) interest rate (plum plot line) ticked up after the big surge last month to a positive 1.4% as total CPI continued plunging from negative 0.2% to negative 0.4%.
The Bank of Canada CPI target mandate has been 2% since 1993 (Canadian Library of Parliament).
During the global ZIRP-NIRP experiment citizens have not be able to earn enough real positive returns on cash assets, so consumption replaced savings. Now after 11.3 years of ZIRP-NIRP and Covid 19 in full bloom we have the TSX real estate cash index (green dotted plot line) back in the neighbourhood of 1Q 2007 cash prices.
The live TradingEconomics.com Canada Household Savings Rate chart follows:
Canada Household Savings Rate
source: tradingeconomics.com
Household Saving Rate in Canada increased to 6.10% in 1Q 2020 from 3.6% in 4Q 2019. In Canada, personal saving is personal disposable income less personal expenditure on consumer goods and services, less current transfers from persons to corporations and to non-residents as a percent of disposable income.
My August 1, 2019 post Japan Redux suggests that the next part of the credit cycle (the bust) will include the return to savings as spent consumers work on repairing their balance sheets.
My January 25, 2019 post on Peak Consumption shows the relationships among the rates of Canadian household savings at the lows, consumer spending at the highs and retail sales momentum plunging as consumers become tapped out.
If peak real estate has come and gone, those at the margin will turn to a lengthy balance sheet repair discipline by diverting discretionary consumption spending to debt reduction or will turn to a quick transformation of debt to equity via asset liquidation. In either case it will take time as Canadians turn away from consumption back to saving which in the long term will lead back to investment possibilities.
A Snippet from my DEC 2012 post What do you do during a housing bust?
As housing prices fall over long time spans, households have to make decisions about how they are going to turn the debt they acquired on the way up into equity.
There are two basic choices; get in front of the falling price curve and sell at a either a loss or gain depending on timing, or if the household has the income and positive cash flow, pay down the debt over time as a forced savings plan. The former allows for greater savings and re-investment and the latter is a suicidal prison term chained to a decaying asset.
In either case, households turn to saving and away from consumption.
