On Wednesday, May 18, Statistics Canada released April’s inflation report with a year-over-year increase of 6.8%, increasing marginally from the 6.7% recorded in March 2022. This new 31-year high deviated from economists' expectations of a slight decrease from last month. This begs the question, are we seeing the peak of this challenging inflationary environment or will it continue to edge higher?

This year has been extremely difficult for global stock as markets have struggled with inflation fears, rising interest rates, the Russia-Ukraine War, and lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. In North America, every major index is negative on the year. The TSX is the breadwinner with a whopping -7.24% return YTD and the biggest loser being the NASDAQ at -27.32%.

The Federal Reserve announced its second rate hike of 2022 to increase the benchmark interest rate from 0.50% to 1.00%. This is the first 50 basis point hike since 2000 and the first time the central bank raised rates in back-to-back meetings since 2006.

You may have heard economists talking about the risk of “stagflation” following news the US economy shrank in the first quarter of 2022. But what is stagflation exactly and should you be worried?

Last week, Argentina’s congress approved a restructuring deal for $45 billion in debt owed to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Following two years of negotiations, President Alberto Fernández urged his parliament to approve the deal prior to a payment of $2.8 billion due on March 22. The agreement ultimately removes the threat of an imminent default on $19 billion of repayments due this year. The terms of the agreement require Argentina to gradually reduce the budget deficit over the next three years while curbing central bank money printing in exchange for a four-and-a-half-year grace period on IMF payments.

There was monetary news coming from both sides of the border this Wednesday as the Bank of Canada released their inflation numbers for February and the US Federal Reserve announced their first rate hike since 2018 at 0.25% setting the overnight rate at 0.50%.