HDQ — Today's Edition

Today's Briefing

Washington Tried to Cap Its Borrowing Costs This Week. Gold Believed It. Bonds Did Not.

A Treasury bond buyback reversed within 24 hours, yet gold kept the gain it produced, oil rallied on a separate Hormuz story, and the loonie strengthened for a third straight week ahead of Warsh's August 28 Jackson Hole debut and the Bank of Canada's September 2 decision.

Aug 22, 2026 8 min Read →

Daily Thread

The TSX Rallied Into Tonight's Tariff Deadline Because the Real Risk Moved to Washington's Bond Market

Gold miners, not trade negotiators, drove Friday's gains, and the currency signal underneath it tells advisors which crisis is actually live heading into the weekend.

Aug 21 6 min Read →

Market

A Flat TSX Close Masked a Sharp Split Underneath, and Today Brings a Bigger Test

The TSX Composite closed nearly unchanged Thursday even as banks fell and gold miners rallied sharply, with today's session set to turn on whether the US and Canada finalize a trade deal before tonight's tariff deadline.

Aug 21 6 min Read →

Recent News

Geopolitical The Currency Market Has Already Voted on Tonight's Tariff Deadline

A 50 percent US tariff on roughly $20 billion of Canadian goods is due to take effect at midnight unless a trade deal is finalized, and USD/CAD has spent two weeks pricing the outcome ahead of the headlines.

Aug 21 6 min

Economy The Bank of Canada Has Not Moved Its Rate Since April. Borrowing Costs Have Moved Anyway.

The BoC's overnight rate has sat at 2.25 percent for six straight meetings, but the Government of Canada 10-year yield has climbed 34 basis points in the same window, driven by a US bond market the Bank of Canada does not control.

Aug 21 6 min

Tax & Wealth The Prescribed Rate Window Has Never Stayed Open This Long, But It May Not Last Into 2027

The CRA confirmed its prescribed rate holds at 3 percent for a sixth consecutive quarter, even as rising Government of Canada bond yields raise the odds that the rate used to calculate it moves higher next year.

Aug 21 6 min

Behavioural The Herd Has Found Its New Favourite Trade

Canadian bank shares and gold miners moved in opposite directions this week, and the reasoning has more to do with which headline landed most recently than with either sector's fundamentals.

Aug 21 6 min

Daily Thread The Treasury Bond Rescue Reversed by Thursday, and Canada Never Got the Relief in the First Place

The U.S. Treasury's debt buyback briefly eased global yields and lifted gold on Wednesday, but Canada's own 10 year yield climbed to a fresh high Thursday regardless, and gold's pullback on a fresh Iran escalation shows the week's rally was a rates trade, not a war trade.

Aug 20 7 min

Market The TSX Gave Back a 127-Point Tariff Rally as Financials Sold Off Into the Close

The TSX Composite closed nearly flat after gold miners and Canadian banks moved double digits in opposite directions, while US indices fell broadly on a semiconductor selloff ahead of the FOMC minutes.

Aug 20 6 min

Geopolitical Hormuz Shipping Traffic Just Fell 19.5 Percent, and the Reason Is the Threat Against the Mediator, Not Iran

Daily crossings through the Strait of Hormuz fell from 19 to 3 over the past week as President Trump threatened to bomb Oman, the neutral party brokering a shipping deal, introducing a new failure mode for the crisis.

Aug 20 6 min

Economy Canada's Inflation Print Just Complicated the Bank of Canada's September Calculus, and the Fed Isn't Making It Easier

Headline CPI accelerated to 3.0 percent in July while core inflation barely moved, and the Federal Reserve's July minutes showed hawkish sentiment running deeper than the three known dissents.

Aug 20 6 min

Tax & Wealth The Prescribed Rate Has Held at Three Percent for Six Straight Quarters. The Bond Market Suggests the Window Is Narrowing

The CRA confirmed the prescribed rate at 3 percent for the fourth quarter of 2026, but Government of Canada yields near a two year high mean the rate advisors lock in for income splitting loans today may not be available for long.

Aug 20 6 min

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