Get the clarity you need to navigate shifting market conditions with confidence. The Market Services FX Spotlight delivers timely insights and analysis from RBC Investor Services’ FX Market Trading Desk, helping you understand the currency moves, central bank decisions and geopolitical shifts that matter most to your portfolio and your clients.
Headlines
- Canada entered a technical recession after Q1 GDP came in at –0.1%, compounding the revised Q4 GDP of –1%, with a weaker job market and US trade pressures weighing on business investment and defence spending.
- Canada’s Labour Force Survey for April printed –17,700, marking the weakest four-month period of job gains since the pandemic in 2021, while the unemployment rate rose to 6.9% from 6.7%.
- The Bank of Canada held its policy rate at 2.25%, continuing to look through the immediate war impact while flagging US trade uncertainty as an additional layer of complexity for the economic outlook.
- Kevin Warsh was confirmed as the 17th Fed Chair in a 54–45 Senate vote on May 13, with FOMC minutes revealing most officials are now contemplating rate hikes if inflation remains above 2%, and futures pricing in a full quarter-point hike by end-2026.
- UK political turmoil intensified as Labour suffered historic local election losses, 96 members of Parliament called for Keir Starmer to resign and key cabinet members stepped down.
May saw yields extend higher as inflation data topped estimates, though yields reversed lower into month-end. Equities largely looked through the data and interpreted developments in the Middle East as de-escalatory.
